“Direct talks will happen”
Syrian President Bashar Assad said yesterday he believes direct peace talks with Israel are possible and that they will eventually take place.
"It”s natural that we would move, at a later stage, to direct negotiations. We cannot achieve peace through indirect talks only," Assad said at a press conference in Damascus with his Croatian counterpart, Stipe Mesic. Advertisement
Assad”s comments came as Olmert was in Turkey for talks with officials there that were expected to focus, among other things, on the Turkish-mediated negotiations with Syria.
Assad compared the peace process to the construction of a building, saying Syria and Israel are now laying the foundations for peace through the indirect talks.
"We should first lay solid foundations and then construct the building, and not vice versa," he said. "If the bases are successful, then direct negotiations will be successful."
Olmert said last week it was possible to negotiate a peace treaty between Israel and Syria.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Christian leader Michel Aoun, an ally of Hezbollah, said he would support peace talks between Lebanon and Israel on condition that Syria be present.
On Sunday, the Lebanese daily Ad-Diyar reported that France was working toward the holding of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon. According to the report, which has not been verified by other sources, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was going to bring up the subject of talks on his next visit to Lebanon, which is scheduled for the beginning of January.
Likud chairman MK Benjamin Netanyahu spoke out against the contacts between Israel and Syria during a visit to the Golan Heights yesterday.
"We don”t know what Olmert is going to agree to behind closed doors," he said.
Flanked by two Likud leaders who are closely identified with security issues, former Israel Defense Force chief of staff Moshe Ya”alon and Maj. Gen. (res.) Yossi Peled, Netanyahu added, "We have come here to openly say that a government I will head will remain on the Golan Heights and will protect it as a strategic asset. The citizens of Israel expect their leadership to protect their security 365 days a year and not a leadership that tries to shirk its responsibility two months before elections by letting loose indirect declarations."
"One doesn”t have to be a military expert to understand from here why the 1967 border is not a defensive line from this direction," Ya”alon said.
Peled, who was the head of the Northern Command during his army career, said, "they are trying to sell us in Turkey. The Golan is the oxygen of the Jewish state, and to discuss it is potential suicide for the state of Israel."
Four rounds of indirect Syrian-Israeli talks were held this year through Turkish mediators, to little avail. The talks were suspended after Olmert announced he would step down.
No new date has been set for a continuation of indirect talks, and Assad did not say yesterday when they would resume. They are not expected to go on until after February”s Knesset elections.
While in Turkey yesterday, Olmert met President Abdullah Gul before holding talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan over dinner.
The office of Gaza Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement that he called the president of Turkey and asked him to press Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza.