Israel, Syria Closing Gap, Officials Say : Mideast: Aides call Christopher upbeat about peace prospects after four days of shuttling between capitals. But neither side is ready for face-to-face talks.

After four days of shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem, Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s aides said Wednesday that Syria and Israel for the first time are trading increasingly detailed proposals and counterproposals on how to end their 46-year state of war.

The officials said this week’s messages between the two capitals went to the heart of the issues that any peace agreement must include: Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights; a real normalization of political and economic relations, and security assurances for both countries, which have fought five times.

As a result, Christopher ended his second round of mediation between the two bitter enemies Wednesday with a narrow glimmer of the Middle East’s rarest commodity--optimism.

Christopher and his traveling aides say they have become convinced of two fundamental factors: Syrian President Hafez Assad is sincere about seeking a peace agreement, but it will take hard slogging--and more shuttling--to get there.

On the positive side, “He (Assad) is serious about the process, very determined, (and) realizes that the stakes are quite large,” Christopher said after his second meeting with the Syrian president in four days.

And Syria, which long demanded an immediate Israeli withdrawal from the Golan as the first step toward any other dealings, has accepted the idea that any pullout will be gradual--and is bargaining over how long it should be.

On the negative side, Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin are still far apart on many issues, and it will be a long time before their negotiators are ready to sit down face to face, Christopher warned.

It hasn’t been easy getting this far. On Tuesday, a U.S. official said, Christopher bluntly warned the balky Assad that if he wasn’t more forthcoming, the secretary of state might abandon his mediation effort.

Assad quickly came forward with more detailed suggestions, leading Israel’s usually grim Rabin to acknowledge, “There may perhaps be a small ray of hope” for peace.

The U.S. official said the episode revealed Assad’s intentions. The Syrian appeared to have decided, even before Christopher complained, that he needed to show more flexibility to keep the negotiations going.

Indeed, as Christopher left Damascus on Tuesday, Syrian officials announced that he was coming back--even though Christopher himself had not yet decided to do so.

Officials advance several reasons to buttress their conclusion that Assad’s interest in peace with Israel--after so many years of ferocious hostility--is real.

Assad has looked at the military balance in the Middle East, they say, and has concluded that as Israel’s technological advantage grows over his own increasingly obsolete Soviet-made arsenal, he needs to seek a deal sooner rather than later.

He also has realized, they say, that if Syria is the last Arab country to make peace with Israel, he will be negotiating from a position of isolation and weakness--and thus is likely to get a worse deal.

Finally, Assad, 63 and intermittently ailing, is believed to be worried about his legacy: Will he go into history as a key Arab statesman who changed the face of the Middle East, or as a leader who stood in history’s way?

In the short run, the time pressure Assad feels is increased by the fact that Israel’s Rabin must run for reelection by June, 1995--and American officials believe he is unlikely to make risky concessions to a long-hated enemy in an election year. So Christopher is shooting for a peace agreement by the end of this year--and, despite his caution in public, has begun to think privately that the target might be reachable, one aide said.

The basic shape of an agreement is already becoming clear.

Syria wants Israel to withdraw from all of the Golan Heights occupied in 1967. Israel is willing to withdraw from almost all the territory.

Israel wants full normalization of relations, including an embassy in Damascus and open trade. Assad has dropped several hints that, in time, he can live with most and perhaps all of that.

Each country wants security assurances to protect it against surprise attack from the other. The issues under discussion include a demilitarized zone that could include both Israeli and Syrian territory, an international peacekeeping force and U.S.-supplied surveillance, electronic sensors and early warning systems.

The details are troublesome, of course. Syria has reportedly proposed demilitarizing an equal area on each side of the 1967 border. Israel has proposed demilitarizing most of southwestern Syria--and little or no Israeli territory.

Assad has shown no sign of preparing for a full peace with Israel, one that would include diplomatic relations, trade and even cross-border tourism. Israel and the United States say “real peace” is an essential goal of any deal.

The timing of each move is critical. Syria, for example, wants the whole process to begin with an Israeli declaration that the Golan Heights is Syrian territory. But Israel has proposed that Syria begin with full diplomatic recognition of the Jewish state.

“They’re all tied up in a package,” a senior U.S. negotiator said. “They’re all dependent upon each other.”

That means the details of each and every part must be fully negotiated before either country will make a formal commitment--a factor that has contributed to the slow going.

Further, one official said, both Assad and Rabin are notoriously tough negotiators--”and they’ve been playing the game against each other for 25 years,” he said. “These guys know all of each other’s moves.”

The high level of suspicion on both sides has, ironically, led the Syrians and Israelis to agreement on one point: They aren’t ready to talk about issues face to face. Christopher said Wednesday that both countries prefer to talk indirectly, through his time-consuming shuttle diplomacy.

That means Christopher will almost certainly return to Damascus and Jerusalem next month, American, Syrian and Israeli officials said. And if next month’s talks go well, he will come back a month or so later. And again and again--”as long as the parties want,” he said.

Clinton Administration officials, seeking to head off criticism that Christopher should be spending his time on more pressing crises like North Korea’s nuclear capability or Bosnia-Herzegovina’s war, have begun defending the secretary of state’s choice of priorities.

“A Syrian-Israel agreement . . . would put an end to the conflict between Israel and the Arab states,” National Security Adviser Anthony Lake said in a speech in Washington on Tuesday. “Jordan and Lebanon would be able to resolve their differences with Israel in short order.”

And, aides privately admit, Christopher has one more reason to want these negotiations to work. His 16 months in office have been marked more by visible failures--in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti--than by visible successes. In effect, they say, he could use a win.

Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.