SYRIAN PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad made it clear yesterday that he is prepared to negotiate peace with an Israeli government formed by Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu.
Dr Assad told the Sharjah-based al-Khaleej Arabic daily that there is little difference between left and right in Israel. “One is bad, the other is awful,” he stated.
“The right-wing is right-wing, and the left-wing is right-wing. The right kills Arabs and the left kills Arabs.” He warned the Arabs not to place their hopes on one camp or the other.
Mr Netanyahu has vowed not to return to Syria the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967 and formally annexed in 1981. But, under US pressure analysts believe he might concede the Golan rather than allow a Palestinian state to emerge in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. This being the case, Dr Assad expressed concern that negotiations between Syria and Israel would enable Israel to put on hold efforts to end the Palestinian-Israeli dispute.
While he said Damascus is prepared to reach a bilateral deal with Israel, he argued that this would be meaningless unless it ends its conflict with the Palestinians. He said it is “impossible” for Syria to have real peace with Israel as long as there are “half a million Palestinians in our country whose status remains unresolved”.
A bilateral deal between Syria and Israel could lead to an exchange of ambassadors and formal ties. “But peace has to be comprehensive. We give [the Israelis] the choice between comprehensive peace and a peace agreement which does not have any real value on the ground.
“There is a difference between a peace agreement and peace itself. A peace agreement is a piece of paper you sign. This does not mean trade and normal relations.”
Peace treaties signed with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 have remained “cold” and failed to bring about normalisation.
Last month Dr Assad told US senator John Kerry, head of the Senate foreign relations committee, that Washington should resume its role as peace broker. Until last autumn, Syria had been negotiating indirectly with Israel through Turkish mediators.
