Syria Says It Won’t Deal for Just Part of Golan

Syrian negotiators, giving a quick “no thanks” to Israel’s offer to bargain over a partial return of the Golan Heights, said Monday that they are ready to sign a peace treaty but only after Israel withdraws from all of the strategic plateau that it captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

“We want peace, but we want back what is ours,” Syrian spokeswoman Bushra Kanafani said.

Israeli spokesman Yossi Gal said his delegation submitted a detailed plan envisioned by Jerusalem as “a common basis for the next phase of the talks.”

Acknowledging that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government is now ready to consider a land-for-peace deal covering the Golan, Gal said the Israeli delegation wants to find out how much peace Syria wants before deciding how much territory Israel will yield.

“It is of great importance that we know exactly what kind of peace the Syrians have in mind,” Gal said. “Is it going to be a peace founded on a bilateral peace treaty? Does it contain full diplomatic relations, exchange of ambassadors, open borders, full normalization between our two peoples and other aspects of complete peace?”

Kanafani said Syria is willing to discuss all those questions but only after Israel agrees to return the Golan.

The exchange came as Israel resumed peace negotiations with Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinians after a 10-day break. The latest round of talks is scheduled to run through next Wednesday.

Meanwhile, separate multilateral talks resume today, with discussions of water resources in Washington and arms control in Moscow. Other multilateral sessions include talks on environmental issues on Oct. 26-27 in The Hague, economic development on Oct. 29-30 in Paris and refugees on Nov. 11-12 in Ottawa. These meetings are open to other Middle East nations and major European, North American and Asian powers, as well as Israel and its four Arab neighbors--Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.

In the key bilateral negotiations, Arab and Israeli negotiators agreed that the atmosphere remains remarkably civil but that progress has been measured in inches.

In Tel Aviv, Rabin said Israel will negotiate a partial return of the Golan but “no one is authorized, not in the government at this point, certainly not in the (peace talks) delegation, to deal with drawing maps.”

Talking to reporters before he left Israel on an official visit to Germany, Rabin said Israel is ready to negotiate the terms for limited self-government for the 1.75 million Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But he complained that the Palestinians have sought to sidetrack the talks onto subjects, such as human rights, that he called “symptoms” of the occupation.

Palestinian delegates said Israel’s proposed conditions for self-rule are so restricted that there is little point in discussing them.