Israel-Syria Talks in ‘New Phase,’ Christopher Says : Mideast: He presents Damascus with Jerusalem’s peace proposals. The initial response is negative.

After two days of talks with Syrian President Hafez Assad, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Sunday that Israeli-Syrian peace efforts have entered “a new, more substantive phase.”

Christopher presented Assad with an Israeli peace package and will take Syria’s response to it back to Jerusalem today.

At a news conference Sunday, Christopher characterized the talks with Assad as “very serious and substantive.” But he added: “It’s clear that there is still a good deal of work to be done.”

An indication that a deal may not be close at hand came Sunday, when Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh said his government could not accept the Israeli proposal.

The details of the Israeli package have not been released, and U.S. officials refused to divulge specifics. But the plan centers on a phased withdrawal from the strategic Golan Heights overlooking Israel’s northern Galilee, and security arrangements to prevent attacks against Israeli towns, according to U.S. and Israeli sources.

The latest of several versions leaked to the Israeli press claims the Golan-for-peace swap between the Middle East’s most bitter rivals would be spread out in three phases over eight years.

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Itamar Rabinovich, who is the chief negotiator with Syria, said Israel’s proposals do not center on maps but on “ideas and impressions which I think are enough to carry out a very interesting conversation with Assad.”

Shareh said Syria has rejected the Israeli offer, and reiterated Damascus’ longstanding demand for a total pullout from the Golan Heights.

Israel captured the strategic plateau as well as Jordan’s West Bank, the Egyptian Sinai and eastern Jerusalem--more than tripling the territory under its control--during the 1967 Mideast War.

The Christopher visit is considered critical to progress in Syrian-Israeli talks tentatively scheduled to resume in Washington later this month.

Unlike talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the so-called second track with Syria has made no significant progress since the peace process began in Madrid in 1991.

Both U.S. and Israeli officials are hoping that the Israeli initiative will break the logjam and eventually lead to talks at a higher level, possibly between Syrian and Israeli foreign ministers.

But the signals out of Damascus on Sunday were tentative.

State-controlled Damascus Radio put Israel on notice about the 15,000 Jewish settlers in the Golan.

“It has become clear that peace cannot but be overwhelming and withdrawal complete from all occupied Arab land with the elimination of all settlements and departure of all settlers. We don’t think that this is hard to achieve because it is the basis of the peace process defined since the beginning,” it said.

Both sides appeared Sunday to accept that any progress in the Christopher mission would still require protracted mediation.

In a radio interview, Israeli Housing Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Sunday, “Whoever thinks we will sit with the Syrians today, and tomorrow there will be an agreement is simply mistaken. This will be a long and exhausting story.”

Christopher said Sunday that he is unlikely to return to Syria on his current trip, but said he expected to be back in the region in the “near future” to resume mediation.