Israel open to meeting with Syrians: officials By Adam Entous APR 27,08
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel would be open to participating in a senior-level meeting with the Syrians brokered by Turkey to test the waters for renewed peace negotiations, Israeli officials said on Sunday. Such a preliminary meeting between Israeli and Syrian representatives would be the next step in mediation efforts by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who held talks over the weekend with Syrian President Bashar al Assad, the officials said.
That meeting could lay the groundwork for more formal talks in the future, Israeli officials said, though Erdogan could face an uphill task bringing the two sides to formal negotiations before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office next January.The Bush administration has been cool to renewing Israeli-Syrian negotiations, which collapsed in 2000 without resolving the fate of the Golan Heights, Israeli officials said.If such an invitation comes from Turkey, I can't see any reason why Israel would not attend, said a senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.They would accept, another Israeli official said of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office.Syria says it received word from Turkey that Israel would be willing to give back the Golan in return for peace with the Arab state. Israel captured the plateau in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981 in a move not recognized internationally.
Syrian officials said on Saturday that Damascus would cooperate with Turkey in its mediation efforts but that the Jewish state must also make an effort towards a deal.Olmert has neither confirmed nor denied that such an offer was conveyed to Damascus, and a spokesman, Mark Regev, declined to comment on whether the prime minister would agree to send a representative to a senior-level meeting with the Syrians.Israel desires peace with Syria, Regev said. As you know, messages have been sent. The Syrians are aware of Israel's expectations as to the talks and we are aware of the Syrian expectations as to the process.While Assad sought out Olmert's stance on the Golan, Israeli officials said the prime minister has been seeking assurances that peace talks would lead Syria to sever ties with Iran and anti-Israel groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas Islamists who control the Gaza Strip.
A senior Israeli official said it was unclear whether Olmert had received any assurances from Assad to that effect. The question of what price they're willing to pay remains an open question, the official said.Olmert, whose U.S.-backed peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have shown little sign of progress, has sought to shore up his public standing, damaged by Israel's inconclusive war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006.
Renewing the Syrian track could be a major political gamble for Olmert, already under fire from Israel's right wing parties over negotiations with the Palestinians.Previous Israeli prime ministers have conveyed similar messages to Syria about returning the Golan for peace. But at issue is the scope of any Israeli withdrawal.
Erdogan has said that mediation efforts would start at a low level and move up the chain if successful. Turkey, which is a NATO member, has close ties with Israel.But without full U.S. backing, diplomats doubt talks will go anywhere. Last week, Washington released intelligence alleging Syria had built a nuclear reactor with North Korean help before an Israeli air strike destroyed the facility last September.In remarks published in a Qatari newspaper on Sunday, Assad said the site was not part of a nuclear weapons program, but was a military facility under construction. (Editing by Giles Elgood)
Assad says facility Israel bombed not nuclear: paper APR 27,08
DUBAI (Reuters) - The Syrian site Israel bombed in September was not part of a nuclear weapons program, but was a military facility under construction, President Bashar al-Assad said in remarks published on Sunday. Last week, Washington released intelligence alleging Syria had built a nuclear reactor with North Korean help before an Israeli air strike destroyed the facility on September 6.
Is it logical? A nuclear site did not have protection with surface to air defenses? A nuclear site within the footprint of satellites in the middle of Syria in an open area in the desert? Assad told Qatar's al-Watan newspaper in an interview conducted before the U.S. accusations were made.At that stage, he was commenting on media reports that said the target was a nuclear site. The truth is that the raid was at a military site under construction, Assad said in the interview. We are against mass destruction weapons for Israel, Iran or others.Assad said it was illogical for Syria to seek a nuclear bomb. Where would we use it? On Israel it would kill the Palestinians. I do not see this as logical.Assad accused Washington of ignoring a Syrian proposal to make the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction because it included Israel.In 2003, when Syria was a member of the United Nations' Security Council, the Arab state pushed for a ban on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the Middle East in what was seen than as a bid to shine a spotlight on Israel's arsenal.
Israel is believed to have about 200 nuclear warheads but the country's policy is not to discus the issue -- which some diplomats say is an open secret.Speaking after the U.S. accusations, Syria's ambassador to the United States dismissed as a fantasy the U.S. allegations.Assad said he did not know why Israel, officially at war with Syria since the 1973 Middle East conflict, bombed the site.
Why did they raid it, we do not know what data they had, but they know and they see through satellites; they have raided an incomplete site that did not have any personnel or anything. It was empty, he added.
BILATERAL RELATIONS
Asked about Syria's response, Assad said: Retaliation does not mean a missile for a missile, a bomb for a bomb or a bullet for a bullet ... They (Israelis) understand what we mean. We do not say that we will retaliate, i.e. we will bomb.You have to ask a different question; had Syria not been harming Israeli policy would Israel have carried out an operation of this sort? The truth is that we have the means to respond, but in our own way.We understand Israel wants to provoke Syria and possibly to drag Syria into war while we do not seek war. We have been clear about this point. We have other means and we do not necessarily have to declare them.
Assad refused to answer a question about reports that Syria was seeking to acquire Russian missiles.If there was a door open, even if it was small, for peace you should not seek war but you should seek to defend yourself. Now are you prepared or not, psychologically we are always ready and constantly prepare ourselves, but in terms of results no one knows results until the battle itself.Watan ran part of the interview on Thursday in which he said Damascus was ready to negotiate with Israel through Turkey to find common ground for peace, but any direct talks must wait until a new U.S. president is elected. Syria says it received word from Turkey that Israel was willing to give back the occupied Golan Heights in full in return for peace with the Arab state -- a key issue that led decade-long negotiations to falter in 2000. (Reporting by Summer Said; writing by Inal Ersan)
Abbas gives Egypt mediation unconditional support Sun Apr 27, 10:02 AM ET
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday gave his unconditional support to Egypt's mediation efforts with Israel as Palestinian factions prepared to meet in Cairo to discuss a truce. The Palestinian Authority unconditionally supports the efforts undertaken by Egypt to achieve a truce in Gaza, Abbas told reporters in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after talks with President Hosni Mubarak.Egypt has been serving as a go-between in the truce negotiations as Israel considers Hamas -- which has control of the Gaza Strip -- a terror group and refuses any direct contacts.Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman will host Palestinian factions on Tuesday and Wednesday to draft a common position regarding the truce proposal.
At least three smaller Palestinian militant groups will send delegations to Egypt on Monday, including the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) which often claims rocket attacks on Israel.The delegation will present the Committees vision for a ceasefire with the Zionist enemy considering that experience confirms the enemy will not adhere to it, PRC spokesman Abu Mujahid said in a statement.Spokesmen from the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) have also said they will be sending representatives to Cairo.The radical Islamic Jihad movement, responsible for many of the persistent rocket attacks on southern Israel, has not yet said whether it will be sending a delegation but was involved in abortive truce talks last month.On Thursday, senior Hamas official Mahmud al-Zahar said in Cairo that the Islamist movement had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza first, which could be extended to the West Bank within six months.Zahar, speaking after talks with Suleiman, said the move must be reciprocal, simultaneous and comprehensive and that Israel must end its crippling blockade of the impoverished territory.A proposal put forward by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit stipulates a ceasefire, the opening of the border crossings, a lifting of the blockade and finally the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said on Sunday however that the plan does not say the elements are simultaneous.
Hundreds of Gaza Christians head to West Bank for Easter Sun Apr 27, 8:16 AM ET
EREZ BORDER CROSSING, Gaza Strip (AFP) - Some 500 Palestinian Christians were allowed to leave the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Sunday to celebrate Easter in the West Bank, an Israeli army spokesman said. Approximately 500 Palestinian Christians were allowed to leave the Gaza Strip to go to the West Bank for Easter, Major Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the military's coordinator of activities in the territories, told AFP.The Palestinians left through the Erez crossing bound for the West Bank town of Bethlehem with special permits that will allow them to remain for a few days to celebrate Orthodox Easter.Some 2,500 Palestinian Christians, most of them Greek Orthodox, live alongside 1.5 million Muslims in the impoverished coastal strip, which has been ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement since it seized power in June.Since then, Israel has tightened restrictions on movement in and out of Gaza, sealing it off to all but very limited humanitarian supplies in a bid to put pressure on Hamas to stop rocket fire from the territory by militants.
World Bank: Israeli blockade stalls Palestinian economy By KARIN LAUB, Associated Writer Sun Apr 27, 4:31 AM ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Palestinian economy won't grow this year, largely due to Israeli restrictions on movement and despite billions of dollars in aid meant to shore up support for peace talks, the World Bank predicted Sunday. The bleak prognosis stands in contrast to the bank's initial assessment that double-digit economic growth would be possible if Israel, the Palestinian government and the donors did their part.The bank now estimates that the Gross Domestic Product — currently at about $4 billion — will grow by only 3 percent in 2008.That, taking into account population growth, leaves per capita income static, if not lower than the previous year, the report said.The bank noted that the Gaza economy has sharply contracted because of the virtually complete closure of the Gaza strip by Israel and Egypt after the violent Hamas takeover there last year. In the West Bank, where Israel maintains a network of hundreds of checkpoints, gates and earthen barriers, GDP growth was only modest, the bank said.In December, donor countries pledged $7.7 billion over three years to help fund a Palestinian reform and development plan.The idea was to gradually cut government spending and revive the private sector, which has been hit hard during Israeli-Palestinian fighting and stifling Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement. This would eventually make the Palestinians less dependent on international aid.
The international community also hoped that an economic recovery would lend support to peace negotiations, which have yielded little tangible progress so far.However, the bank said that the private sector revival required for a virtuous cycle of growth has not been realized due to the continued restrictions on movement and access.
The Palestinian reform and development plan is largely implemented in the West Bank, though Gaza does see some of the foreign aid, in the form of salaries paid to thousands of civil servants there.On Friday, said the Palestinian government in the West Bank has made significant strides toward reducing its huge budget deficit of 27 percent of the GDP, but that international donors need to transfer an additional $400 million to close the deficit in 2008. Much of international aid is currently earmarked for development projects, not budget support.Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel is working closely with the donor community, and that it is in Israel's interest to see the Palestinian economy recover.
However, he said Palestinian militants continue to pose a threat, and a hasty removal of roadblocks, if followed by attacks on Israel, could set back peace efforts.We are ready for calculated risks. We are not ready for irresponsible risks, he said. We will continue to work with the Palestinians and the international community in taking down roadblocks.In recent weeks, Israel removed some obstacles to movement in the West Bank, mainly dirt mounds. However, the report, citing U.N. figures, said in March that the overall number of obstacles had increased.
