Three Syrian messages to Barak
Damascus has, in the recent days, sent three related messages pertaining to the Syrian negotiating position to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. These messages say that Syria is "ready for peace," but it is "not hurrying for it," and is still "having other alternatives."
Timely speaking, the first of these three messages came when SANA said that the former member of the political bureau of the Hamas movement, Mousa Abu Marzouk, visited Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa at the American University in Beirut. This was, however, the first time, the Syrian side officially reported about a meeting between the chief of the Syrian diplomacy and an official in Hamas.
The direct reason for the meeting between al-Sharaa and Abu Marzouk was "a moral and social one" towards al-Sharaa. Nevertheless this incident cannot be split from what had been taking place in the recent weeks which witnesses tough Israeli stances concerning ways to returning to the negotiation table, stalemated since the beginning of 1996, facilitating the building of settlements in the occupied Golan Heights and giving signals on the possibility of maintaining a unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon in July 2000.
As the Syrian side received Barak's victory in the Israeli elections by "an open diplomatic campaign" and " public relations" aimed at diverting the attention of the Syrian government to the Syrian track and showing strong readiness to achieve peace with the Labor Party and Barak, signals which also reflected in revealing a readiness to ask the Palestinian opposition to concentrate on political action.
Very soon, the Syrian officials discovered that Barak understood "Syria's readiness for peace" as a weakness. Barak concentrated on the Wye River agreement and tried to impose preconditions in order to return to the negotiating table. These preconditions are summarized in his non-abidance to the "deposit" of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of a statement that provides for Israel's withdrawal from the Golan to behind the June 4, 1967 borderline.
Built on all these events, Syria also sent similar signals that it does not yet "lost the initiative" and that there are still "negotiation cards." And in this context came the meeting of the Palestinian Forces Alliance in Damascus and appearance of Abu Marzouk in Damascus and later the declaration of Abu Marzouk's meeting with al-Sharaa.
The second Syrian message came from the Eastern Gate. Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Nabil Najm has visited Damascus during the past two days, and he inspected the premises of his country's embassy, which has been closed down since 1980. Talks were once again exchanged on opening two offices for supervising each of the two countries' interests in Damascus and Baghdad. By all that Damascus sought to send out a reminder of the existence of the issue of Syrian-Iraqi relations. This issue has been frozen in the recent months following Barak's electoral victory, through the recession of the level of rapprochement and the move made by the Iraqi opposition which takes Damascus as a headquarters.
Moreover, the third negotiation message came as Syrian-Lebanese one through convening the "joint follow-up and coordination" meeting chaired by the two countries' premiers and the two sides' declarations of the joint minutes of meetings. These minutes of meetings recalled all previously signed agreements in the areas of security, the economy, culture and sciences, agreements which were mentioned again in an official minutes of meeting cosigned by the two countries' prime ministers, Mahmoud al-Zou'bi and Salim al-Hoss, in which the they stressed "the unity of fate and tracks politically, economically, culturally and socially," and that " peace is a strategic option."
This means that the two countries are ready, together, to withstand the possibility of Barak's unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon in the coming months.