Syria and Israel almost resumed their talks, Israeli paper says
Syria-Israel, Politics, 7/27/1998

Syria and Israel were about to release a joint document which would have paved the way for the resumption of talks between them but Israel backtracked at the last minute, a Hebrew daily reported Sunday.

According to Maariv, it was France that sponsored the document and sent a senior French official to Israel who obtained Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's preliminary approval of the document. The document was supposed to be released a short time before Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad's official visit to France more than a week ago. But shortly before Assad arrived in Paris, Israel rescinded its consent for the publication of the document which expresses the willingness of Israel to renew talks with Syria "not from scratch." But the document did not include any Israeli commitment to the understandings which were worked out with the previous Labor governments of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

The wordings of the document aimed both to please Israel which does not agree with the policy of the former government and to meet Syrian demands that talks with Israel should be resumed from the point where they ceased under Peres. The Hebrew daily report said that Syria had expressed understanding with respect to Israel's security situation, and willingness to conduct "normal, good relations."

Two weeks prior to Assad's trip to France, the Director of the Middle East Department of the French Foreign Ministry, Jean Claude Cursan, arrived in Israel. He brought with him a written proposal for the release of a Syrian-Israeli document, which would have expressed the willingness of the two sides to resume talks. The document included declarations that Israel was to have made during Assad's visit to France, and declarations in response which the Syrians were to have made. The Israelis, including Netanyahu's adviser Uzi Arad, reviewed the French proposal, and even approved its contents, after having making a few revisions to it. According to foreign sources, Arad told the US ambassador in Israel about the contents of the French proposal. Also, French President Jacques Chirac phoned President Assad and told him about the attempt to renew the talks. But a short time prior to Assad's landing in Paris, Israel withdrew its earlier consent.

Arad phoned Paris and said that Israel did not consent to the agreed upon wordings. He proposed that the French present to Assad the known position that Israel has adopted concerning the renewal of the negotiations. The French gave up on the whole proposal. The paper quoted Israeli officials as saying that the subsequent withdrawal of the readiness to release the document stemmed from two reasons: a) the document was not approved of in advance by the Syrians; b) the key to renewal of negotiations on the Syrian track is in Washington, not Paris, and the French initiative wasn't coordinated with the Americans.

Previous Stories:
  Syria: Knesset's decision considered an announcement of war   (7/25/1998)
  France to Israel: Golan is Syrian land; Russia, China discuss peace   (7/24/1998)
  Paris: No peace without Syria   (7/21/1998)

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