Possible detente on the Syrian- Israeli track
Syria-Israel, Politics, 7/13/2000

The Gulf News Agency said on Wednesday that diplomatic sources in Damascus said that contacts have been made in an attempt to revitalize the Israeli-Syrian track and that the most remarkable in these contacts is the role permitted both by the US and Israel to the UN to find out the greatest common indicators between Syria and Israel so as to re-launch the negotiations.

The agency added that its has become evident that Washington no more considers the role played by the UN to contradict with its role, rather Syria's request from the UN assistant secretary general Terry Larsen to take part in defining the June 4 lines of 1967, according to UN resolution 242, would contribute to the success of the visit to be made by the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the region, especially following the election of Bashar al-Assad as President.

The agency indicated that it is believed that the visit of the Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara to Washington by the end of the current month would add the final touches currently taking place and will continue until al-Shara ' s visit.

The diplomatic circles believe that Bashar al-Assad has sent a message through his meeting with the UN Secretary General stressing that he puts the choice of peace on the top list of his priorities and that he does not intend to postpone that in order to face the internal requirements in Syria and that his country is not preoccupied from the priorities of its foreign policy choices.

To this end, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has called on Bashar al-Assad to find out a middle solution, proposed by the British journalist Patrick Seale, in what he ( Seale ) meant that there is a message provides for an Israeli acceptance of a middle solution which proposes that Syria would have supremacy on the Northern eastern coast, which means Syria to reach the June 4, 1967 line, but under the condition that Syria will not pump the waters from the lake ( Tiberies ). A matter which is viewed as practical because eventually the Syrians own water springs and it is illogical that they would pump the waters from (the lake) down to up at a time they can pump the waters from (it spring) above to Damascus or to any other place.

Previous Stories:
  Sweden Gen. chief of the UNDOF in the Golan   (7/12/2000)
  Israel release two Golanese   (7/7/2000)
  Resuming Syrian - Israeli peace negotiations in August   (6/29/2000)

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