The UN Mideast envoy said Thursday that Syrian President Bashar Assad is ready to renew peace talks with Israel but dismissed as "totally incorrect" an Israeli newspaper report that the Syrian leader was ready to intervene in the case of four Israelis missing in Lebanon. Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said he was making an exception to his rule of not commenting on meetings with government leaders to address the reports in the Maariv daily about his talks with Assad last week in Damascus. The paper reported that Assad expressed readiness to resume peace talks and made the offer to help resolve the case of the Israeli MIAs. "It is true that President Assad told me, as he also has done publicly thereafter, that there is an interest in Syria to go back to the negotiating table again, based on established terms of reference. The rest of what I read in an Israeli newspaper this morning is totally incorrect," Roed-Larsen said.
| Irrelevant at this point. The willingness to enter into talks again is significant, especially given the Boy President's belligerence a year ago. Unlike some other in the area, he appears to have done some thinking... |
The UN envoy said Assad was ready to go back to the negotiating table "on particular terms," but Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman said his government wants talks without any preconditions. Roed-Larsen said he will continue to work for peace between Israel and Syria but "to be a go-between between the two parties there has to be an agreement between those two parties that they want to go back to the table — and they have to agree how that is done." Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Sharaa, speaking to reporters Tuesday, reiterated Syria's position that it wants to resume peace talks with the Jewish state at the point where they broke off three years ago. |