Israeli plan preparing for withdrawal from the Golan
Regional-Israel, Politics, 9/14/1999

The Israeli daily Haaretz said on Monday that the Israeli army has recently started to crystallize a preliminary plan to withdraw from the Syrian Golan heights, occupied by Israel since 1967.

The Israeli paper added that drawing this plan falls in the course of a peaceful settlement expected to be reached with Syria.

The paper said that the drawing process of this plan was made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who also occupies the post of defense minister in Israel.

The Israeli paper continued that Barak has given his instructions to draw up a practical procedure to withdraw the Israeli forces from south Lebanon, whether a political settlement is reached or not, adding that the plan will be submitted to the Israeli Prime Minister shortly to be adopted as a basis for negotiations with Syria in the future.

For its part, the Israeli daily Maariv indicated that the plan covers all military and logistic aspects as well as evacuation of positions.

The paper continued that in the framework of the preliminary plans, the Israeli army will reconsider topics already studied under Yitzhak Rabin's government during the negotiations held then with Syria.

In the same context, Haaretz quoted officials in the US government as saying that the US administration has become concerned with resuming direct negotiations between Syria and Israel.

The Israeli paper added that the US President might intervene personally in order to resume Syrian- Israeli negotiations if US Secretary of State Madeleine fails in her current efforts to resume negotiations between Syria and Israel.

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