US may supervise renewed Syria-Israel peace negotiations

Sunday September 07, 2008 08:43 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

In two weeks, a new round of negotiations will begin between Israeli and Syrian negotiators, but without the Turkish mediators that have overseen talks to this point.

Syrian President Bashar Assad

Instead of Turkish mediators, the US will step in as an authority for the next round of talks, which has raised some eyebrows in the Middle East due to the US record in the region. The information came from an interview conducted by the London-based paper Ashark Alawsat with unnamed European and Israeli government sources.

The talks between Syria and Israel restarted recently after having been frozen for eight years. Israel’s stated objective in the talks is to force Syria to move away from its ties with Iran. Syria hopes to regain the territory of the Golan Heights, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 war and never returned. Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights for the last 31 years is in direct violation of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory

According to Ashark Alawsat, the unnamed Israeli government source stated that the Syrians have conditioned direct negotiations on discussing the issue of borders immediately at the outset of talks.

Syrian government sources, speaking to the Associated Press, would not confirm the report. While they did stress the importance of US involvement, the Syrian officials said that until a regime change took place in Washington, little progress could be expected.

arab world | diplomacy | news report saed at imemc dot org