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Syria Wants Peace Based On Full Withdrawal From Golan Heights
DAMASCUS, March 7 (News Agencies) - A Syrian official reacted on Wednesday to Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's call for peace by repeating Syria's demand of a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
"Syria is serious about peace, but a peace that would give it back all its land, up to the June 4, 1967 line, without a grain of sand missing," the official said.
"Peace must be fair and comprehensive, on all matters, because to provide security all the parties - Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese - must recover their rights," the official added.
"Recovering land is the key for peace and I do not think that Sharon is so far serious about giving back the lands" seized in 1967 "to their owners," he added.
"Syria does not want negotiations for the sheer fact of negotiating, the words [said by Sharon on peace] should accompany a commitment to the bases of the peace process," the official said.
Peace should be based on security arrangements that are "balanced and reciprocal, and not in favor of one party at the expense of another," he added.
The official news agency SANA for its part commented, "Syria's position is well known, it rests on [UN] resolutions of international legality and on the principle of land for peace."
It added: "Sharon said in his investiture speech to the Knesset ... that he wanted peace through relations with Egypt and Jordan and by signing peace agreements with other Arab countries, headed by Syria and Lebanon, but did not reveal what this peace would comprise."
During his address to parliament before the investiture of his national unity government, Sharon said, "We want realistic political arrangements and a real peace with Syria and Lebanon."
Israel captured the Golan Heights in the June 1967 Middle East war but has refused to go back to the status quo ante, which would give Syria access to the northeast shore of the Sea of Galilee.
The dispute has blocked negotiations since January last year.
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