Damascus accepts raising level of representation to negotiations

US President Bill Clinton will meet next week with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa in the first Syrian-Israeli meeting on such a level in order to inaugurate the resumption of bilateral negotiations which have been frozen since the beginning of 1996.

On the US side, and besides Albright the meeting will be attended by the US delegate to the Middle East, Dennis Ross, and the US official for the Middle East in the Security Council, Dennis Pollard.

On the Syrian side the meeting will be attended by the legal advisor at the Syrian Foreign Ministry, Riyadh al-Dawoudi, the chairperson of the west Europe department at the Foreign Ministry, Siba Nasser, and the director of the minister's office, Samir al-Qasir.

A high-ranking senior official told the London-based al-Hayat daily that his country "got what it has always demanded in Israel and US approval to resume the negotiations on the grounds of Israel's commitment to withdrawing from the whole of the Golan Heights."