By Jia Xiaohua, Xinhua
Damascus : Although sitting together with arch-foe Israel in the recently held Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Syria still has a long way to go before reclaiming its occupied Golan Heights as no initiation of direct talks with Israel was promised at or after the gathering.
The Golan, a strategic plateau overlooking Israel and abundant in water resources, was occupied by the Jewish state in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed by Israel, a move not recognized by the international community.
Syria and Israel had rounds of talks on the fate of the territory during the past decades but no deal has ever been done.
The latest peace talks between the two countries foundered in 2000 as Syria’s late president Hafez al-Assad refused an Israeli offer to withdraw from most of the Golan without giving Syria control of the eastern shore of Lake Tiberias, or the Sea of Galilee.
That is the landmark Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father as president the same year, has stuck to — full Israeli withdrawal in return for peace.
During the past three years, Bashar has offered many times to restart negotiations from where it stopped, only to get negative answers by the latter, which insisted to reopen the talks from zero point.
Israel sets precondition for talks
However, things changed a little after Israel’s war against Lebanon last summer and a debate on whether to restart the talks arose inside the Israeli government.
In June, Israeli officials confirmed media reports that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had sent out feelers via third parties on the possibility of peace talks with Syria.
“I would like to hear from you whether, in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, Syria would be willing to fulfill its part — to gradually dissolve its alliances with Iran, Hezbollah and the Palestinian terror organizations, and to stop financing and encouraging terror,” Olmert was quoted as saying by Israel’s top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily in June.
But the precondition was something the Syrians could not accept. Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmad Arnous stated that his country was prepared to renew peace talks with Israel based upon the land-for-peace principle and without “any conditions.”
Syrian media also reacted with caution and doubt, questioning that, as a weakened leader, Olmert’s move was only to lessen the political pressure and trust crisis he faced internally on his mistakes in the Lebanon war and corruption allegations.
The official Syria Times newspaper questioned the real intention of Olmert, arguing that while he was offering peace talks, his top officials were posing war threats and his soldiers were staging military exercises on the Golan Heights.
In July of this year, when Olmert offered through Arab media to begin direct peace negotiations with Syria in the absence of American mediation, Assad responded that he was ready to resume talks with him, but in a “clear and official manner,” Israel should made frank pledge to return the Golan.
Meanwhile in Israel, Olmert did not woo much support from his people. A public opinion poll in June showed that only 10 percent Israelis supported a withdrawal from the Golan while 44 percent said no.
Furthermore, the Israeli media was portraying gloomy pictures on an imminent war with Syria in the past summer, highlighting a Syrian troop and missile build-up along the border and Syrian military purchases from Iran and Russia.
The speculation about such a conflict grew so heated that Olmert felt compelled to insist that “Israel does not want war with Syria” while warning against miscalculations that might provoke a war.
The war did not really come, but an Israeli air strike against a target deep inside Syria actually happened on Sept. 6 this year, which at that time seemed to have stifled every chance of a peace talk between the two countries, still technically at war with each other.
Washington downplays peace prospects
Damascus has always hoping that Washington, a key player in the Middle East, could be a mediator in its peace negotiation with Israel. But blacklisted by Washington as a sponsor of terrorism and under continuous U.S. isolation, it could not foresee a positive U.S. role.
The icy relations with Washington began in 2003 when Damascus strongly objected the U.S. war on Iraq, which hit a new low following the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri in Feb. 2005, after which Washington withdrew its ambassador to Syria Margaret Scobey and never sent her back.
Washington has also charged that Syria is interfering in Lebanon ‘s internal affairs and playing a destabilizing role in Iraq. Damascus’ close ally with Iran and its support to the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and radical Palestinian groups, such as the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), also angry Washington.
With all these concerns, Washington has been tough in the isolation to have Damascus change its policies and opposed a resumption of talks between Israel and Syria.
But Syria’s acceptance of over one million Iraqi refugees somewhat alleviated Washington’s toughness and the U.S. approach towards Damascus swayed between cold and lukewarm during the year.
In March, Washington sent an assistant secretary of state to Damascus to talk about the Iraqi refugee issue. But when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came here nearly a month later and relayed messages between the Syrian and Israeli leaders on peace talks, the White House criticized her trip as “bad behavior,” in the words of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Then in May, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem in Egypt’s Red Sea resort Sharm el-Sheikh, asking for Syria’s help to stop the flow of militants from crossing into Iraq.
The following month, after a summit with Olmert on June 19, U.S. President George W. Bush indicated that he would not mediate in any new negotiations between Syria and Israel, signaling no change of his lines.
At the end of July, Rice announced an arms deal worth of 30 billion U.S. dollars in military aid to Israel, a move criticized by Muallem as “dangerous” to the region.
On Sept. 6, Israeli warplanes bombed a site in Syria. Some three weeks later, Washington announced it would invite Syria to the Annapolis conference.
For Syria, Washington’s wavering motions may not seem a surprise. It has always been challenging the sincerity of the Bush administration on its commitment to a real peace in the Middle East, let alone the more marginalized peace track between Israel and Syria.
Annapolis conference promises no immediate negotiation
Since Bush proposed in July a Middle East peace conference to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, Damascus had been skeptical of its success and was hesitant to be present, demanding the inclusion of its Golan issue on its agenda as a condition to go.
Just days before the conference, Washington finally agreed to discuss the issue during a session on a comprehensive peace in the region after Arab officials asked Rice to modify the agenda to something Syria could accept.
Syria then nodded and sent Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad to the conference on Nov. 27, who stated on the occasion his country’s “political will” to achieve a comprehensive and just peace.
Yet, during or after the conference, no promise of initiating direct talks between Syria and Israel was made.
Russia, close to Syria since the former Soviet era, has proposed to hold a follow-up conference in Moscow in early 2008 which would put focus on the Syrian-Israeli talks, but only met cold shoulders from both Israel and the United States.
During a final declaration on the Annapolis conference, Rice did not mention the Moscow meeting and Olmert once again played down prospects of restarting peace talks with Syria only one day after the conference.
“Conditions are not yet at the point” for talks with Syria, Olmert said. “There’s enough that we will have to do that will be heartbreaking.”
For Olmert, if the peace track with the Palestinians has any chance of working, he had to make “painful compromises” trying to get skeptics at home to agree to give up settlements in the West Bank and to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians.
And giving up the Golan and recalling the 12,000 to 15,000 Israeli settlers there would make an already hard job close to impossible. In this sense, it is far less likely for Israel to start separate talks with Syria soon.