Christopher Shuttles Assad’s Peace Suggestions to Israel : Mideast: Syria appears increasingly serious about an accord on the Golan Heights, U.S. officials say.

Syrian President Hafez Assad sent Israel new, more detailed suggestions for a possible peace agreement Monday, and U.S. and Israeli officials said they constituted encouraging--but gradual--progress in the talks between the two nations.

Syria’s new ideas were carried from its capital, Damascus, to Jerusalem by Secretary of State Warren Christopher in a new round of shuttle diplomacy.

Aides said no breakthrough was imminent. But they said the length and detail of Christopher’s talks in Damascus suggested that Syria is exploring the prospect of peace more seriously than before.

“We are at the beginning of a very serious process, in which each element is scrutinized with great care,” Christopher told reporters before leaving Damascus for Israel. “They are exchanging ideas, probing each other on very early . . . but important aspects.”

U.S. and Israeli officials said Assad and his foreign minister, Farouk Shareh, did not change any basic Syrian positions but offered new details and clarifications. They said the Syrian proposals covered the full range of issues in the talks, including Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights and security guarantees for both countries.

Citing a desire to avoid torpedoing the negotiations, the officials refused to provide any further specifics. “We’re not on the brink of a breakthrough,” a senior Christopher aide warned. “There’s a lot of work to be done.”

Still, both U.S. and Israeli officials appeared encouraged by the once-balky Syrians’ willingness to begin discussing concrete issues that a Syrian-Israeli peace would involve.

Israel has already proposed a deal under which it would withdraw its forces from Syria’s Golan Heights in three phases over a period of five to eight years, in exchange for a progressive establishment of normal economic and political relations in the same period. Israel also wants security arrangements--including an international peacekeeping force on the Golan Heights--to give both countries confidence that they will not be attacked.

In Damascus, Christopher met with Assad for four hours Sunday evening and received his response to Israel’s proposals, officials said. On Monday morning, Christopher delayed his departure for five hours to meet again with Shareh.

On Monday evening, in Jerusalem, Christopher met with Yitzhak Rabin at the Israeli prime minister’s home after sundown, when the Jewish holiday of Shavuot ended.

If Christopher makes progress in Israel, his aides said, he may well shuttle back to Damascus later this week.

Israeli officials said they were particularly intrigued by signals from Damascus that Assad is willing to consider a phased withdrawal from the Golan Heights over a period of years. Previously, Syria had insisted on a complete withdrawal as soon as possible.

The Israelis are also interested in discussing the kind of security arrangements that could be put in place at the beginning of a withdrawal, they said. “This is what we need to have confidence to withdraw,” said one. “We want to demilitarize not just the Golan, but some of the Syrian territory beyond the Golan.”

Originally, both Israel and the United States wanted the peace negotiations with Syria to be face to face--not the old-fashioned, U.S.-mediated shuttle that Christopher is undertaking.

But after face-to-face talks bogged down in sterile monologues, Israeli and U.S. officials have concluded that a shuttle is more likely to succeed--if only because Syria seems more interested in its relationship with the United States than in friendship with Israel.

Meanwhile, an aide noted pointedly, “This process shows Warren Christopher at his best: deeply into the details, building trust between them and him, so that ultimately he can build trust between the two of them.”

Today Christopher is scheduled to visit Jericho, the West Bank town from which Israel withdrew last week, for talks with members of the new Palestinian self-governing authority.

Israel consented to the hourlong meeting, although some Israeli officials worried that it might look as if Christopher was granting a form of recognition to leaders of a future Palestinian state.