DAMASCUS, May 7 (IslamOnline.net
& News Agencies) - Syria denied Wednesday, May 7, claims by
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that he had received indirect
messages from Damascus over the possibility of resuming talks.
It also rejected a report in Israel's
Maariv newspaper Tuesday, May 6, that a few weeks before
the war on Iraq, a ranking Israeli foreign ministry official met with
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher, in Amman, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) said.
The Maariv report
claimed that Maher had offered an unconditional resumption of peace
talks with Israel, but that Sharon later declined the offer.
"Syria categorically denies all
the allegations published by the Israeli newspaper Maariv
as well as all the statements by Israeli officials about secret
meetings and messages to Sharon on resuming the peace process,"
foreign ministry spokeswoman Bussaina Shaaban said.
Damascus was "the main player
that brought about the launch of the (1991) peace process in Madrid,
but has always refused to negotiate secretly at any level. Making
peace is an honorable thing that does not require secret
channels," Shaaban told reporters.
"Syria is always ready to resume
negotiations on the basis of the Madrid conference, U.N. Security
Council resolutions and the principle of land for peace," Shaaban
added.
Peace talks between Israel and
Damascus have focused on the return to Syria of the Golan Heights, a
strategic mountainous region occupied by Israeli army in the June 1967
war, and annexed in 1981.
Negotiations collapsed in 2000 when
Israel rejected Syria's demand that it hands back land extending to
the northeast shore of the Sea of Galilee, which Israel has been using
after 1967 occupation as a main source of fresh water.
Shaaban reiterated Damascus' support
for a "comprehensive and durable peace in which all parties will
be included on all tracks, Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese."
Commenting on a visit by U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell last Saturday, Shaaban said
"there were no American demands" made during the visit.
Powell had assured Syrian officials
the "United States would act to establish peace" in the
region and that the Syrian track was "an important part of the
peace process", Shaaban said.
According to Israeli public radio,
Sharon told visiting U.S. envoy William Burns Monday, that he was
"ready to meet Syrian leaders, when and where they choose, and
with no pre-conditions."
‘Doomed To Fail’
In another development, the Syrian
ambassador to Spain said Wednesday that Syria will not consider the
internationally-backed 'roadmap' for peace in the Middle East as long
as it does not deal with the Golan Heights territorial dispute and
southern Lebanon.
"The roadmap is not
satisfactory. It deals with the Israeli-Palestinian problem, whereas
there is an Israeli-Arab conflict," Mohsen Bilal told a press
conference here.
"We told Colin Powell that when
the roadmap will deal with the Golan Heights and southern Lebanon, we
will be ready to discuss it," he said, referring to talks last
week between the U.S. secretary of state and Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad.
Drawn up by the European Union,
Russia, the United Nations and the United States, the Middle East
roadmap advocates the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
Washington, which has piled pressure
on Damascus since the end of the U.S.-led offensive in Iraq, has
argued that the Golan Heights and Lebanon were not neglected in the
roadmap but that U.S. “concerns” over Syrian support for
anti-Israel organizations, such as the Lebanese resistance movement
Hizbullah, must be addressed first.
