Israel has choice on peace, says Assad

By Anna Fifield in Beirut

Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, has suggested he would sign a peace settlement with Israel even without a resolution to the Palestinian conflict, but warned that any such deal would be largely symbolic.

Mr Assad is laying down a challenge to Israel’s incoming prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, by making it clear that a comprehensive peace deal will require significant concessions on the Israeli side.

Nevertheless, his offer comes amid a tentative rapprochement with the US, Israel’s strongest backer, which is eager to see progress towards a peace treaty.

“We give [the Israelis] the choice between comprehensive peace and a peace agreement which does not have any real value on the ground,” Mr Assad told the United Arab Emirates newspaper al-Khaleej.

“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, or borders, or otherwise,” the newspaper quoted the president as saying.

Mr Assad’s father, former president Hafez al-Assad, had suggested that peace could be struck if Israel returned the Golan Heights, occupied in 1967. However, the current Syrian president is now suggesting that the Golan Heights would have to be returned as a precursor to a comprehensive treaty, which could not be forged without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Our people will not accept that, especially since there are half a million Palestinians in our country whose position remains unresolved. It is impossible under these terms to have peace in the natural sense,” Mr Assad said.

Mr Netanyahu promised immediately before his election that he would not return the occupied Golan Heights to Syria.

Analysts said that Mr Assad’s comments underlined the challenges in negotiating with Syria, which many policymakers in the US consider an easier problem to resolve than the Palestinian conflict.

“Assad is very clearly saying here that they have to return the Golan to get a cold peace, but that there will not be anything more than a cold peace unless they deal with the Palestinian issue,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“The Syrian track is actually very complicated because it does not involve just the Golan but it involves distancing itself from Iran, and that is going to be very hard,” Mr Tabler said.

Still, the president’s statement is significant for signalling that Syria would resume peace talks with Israel despite the continued tension in the Gaza Strip.

Damascus had been participating in indirect peace talks with Israel, mediated by Turkey, but they were suspended when Israel invaded the Gaza Strip in late December.

US officials held the highest-level bilateral talks in four years with their counterparts in Damascus at the weekend, saying that they “found a lot of common ground”.