Syria denies giving up Rabin's deposit for negotiating with Israel
Syria-Israel, Politics, 12/1/2004

Syria has denounced what was announced by the spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency Majid Abdul Fattah over Damascus's giving up what was called "Rabin's deposit" in which the former Israeli prime minister Yitzahak Rabin vowed in 1994 to withdraw from the occupied Syrian Golan heights for full normalization of relations with Syria.

The official Syrian news agency SANA quoted the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as confirming that peace negotiations with Israel should be resumed from the point it had stopped at in January 2000.

SANA said that the Syrian President stressed during his telephone call with his Lebanese peer Emil Lahoud the unwavering Syrian position regarding a just and comprehensive peace in the region, based on implementing international resolutions especially UN resolutions 242 and 338 and Israel's withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands.

Meantime, the Syrian minister of information, Mahdi Dakhllah, also denied in a statement to al-Jazeera Damascus's giving up the deposit which confirms Israel's withdrawal to June 4, 1967 border lines.

He added that Syria has not given up what was achieved in the previous phase, denying that the visit made by the Syrian President to Cairo to have connection to an Egyptian mediation between Syria and Israel to resume their peace negotiations.

The Syrian official said that Israel does not accept a mediation from Egypt and that the matter bears no mediation.

Meantime, one Syrian official source said that Damascus's position on the issue of resuming peace negotiations with Israel does not imply prior conditions but simultaneously clings to "build on what has been achieved " including the "Rabin deposit."

Previous Stories:
  Syria for a just and comprehensive ME peace   (11/30/2004)
  UN Committee and the Syrian Golan   (11/26/2004)
  Syrian army official: Israel is the reason behind differences with US   (10/14/2004)

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