Christopher Presses for Mideast Peace Formula : Diplomacy: Secretary shuttles between Syria, Israel to work out details of security on the Golan Heights.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, searching for a formula to restart direct negotiations between Israel and Syria, conferred for five hours Monday with Syrian President Hafez Assad, exploring details of what peace might look like if it is ever made.

Christopher said the meeting was part of intensive shuttle diplomacy between Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin over the nitty-gritty details of security on the Golan Heights, matters such as demilitarized zones and early-warning stations, even though the longtime enemies are still far from an overall peace treaty.

Christopher returned to Jerusalem on Monday night and will report to Rabin this morning on his talks with Assad. The secretary of state then stops in Damascus later in the day to carry Rabin’s words back to the Syrian leader before heading home to Washington.

The decision to pay return visits to both Jerusalem and Damascus indicates the beginning of give-and-take bargaining after months of stalemate.

When Christopher was last in the region in December, his schedule anticipated a similar double-shuttle, but he skipped the second visits because the parties were so far apart that more talks seemed futile.

Christopher said both Israel and Syria want to know how a peace agreement would affect their future security. Syria is demanding the return of the Golan, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War, as part of any overall settlement.

The strategic plateau commands high ground on the border between the two countries, and artillery deployed on the heights is in range of either Tel Aviv or Damascus.

Although Rabin has said he is willing to consider at least a partial Israeli withdrawal as part of an overall settlement, Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud Party, has said the Golan is so important to Israel’s security that he will insist on keeping the territory if he becomes prime minister after next year’s elections. He is leading in opinion polls.

“We’ve been working on the security aspects of the matter,” Christopher said. “Mutual security is their concern. We will try to help them reach agreement.”

A senior U.S. official said that earlier rounds of talks had made progress on some other issues but that security loomed as a potential stumbling block. The official said the latest talks were about such issues as limits on troop deployments, demilitarized zones, early-warning stations and other measures intended to preclude either country from mounting a surprise attack.

The official said that, if these matters can be resolved, it might give each side the confidence to make the compromises necessary to an overall agreement. Although the official cautioned that “it’s not a done deal,” he said Rabin and Assad seem to want to speed up the pace of the negotiations.

Christopher said Assad and Rabin “are once again engaged in serious discussions and are looking for ways to make progress.”

Israeli officials, briefed by Christopher aides, were enthusiastic.

“ ‘Breakthrough’ would be wrong, but we can call it a ‘new opening,’ ” a senior Israeli official said. “There appears to be movement, and they seem to be serious.”

While Christopher and Assad were talking at Syria’s presidential palace overlooking Damascus, Lt. Gen. Daniel Christman, a representative of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff traveling with the secretary of state, visited the Syrian side of the Golan. It was the first time he had seen the plateau from Syria, although he has visited it from Israel and other American military officers have made the trip from both sides.

Later Monday, after his talks in Damascus, Christopher flew to Amman, Jordan, to assure King Hussein that the Clinton Administration is determined to win U.S. congressional approval for a plan to write off $275 million worth of the kingdom’s debt this year. A House subcommittee slashed the figure to $50 million, but senior officials traveling with Christopher said it is now certain that Congress will approve the full amount of debt relief.

The Administration agreed to write off all of Jordan’s $750 million official debt to the United States in annual installments as a reward for the Hashemite kingdom’s peace treaty with Israel.

In a joint news conference with Christopher, Hussein said the debt issue went beyond Jordan’s economic difficulties. “That the United States fulfills its promise is very, very important because of the leadership role the United States plays in this region,” the king said.

As one demonstration of the changes that have followed the Jordan-Israel peace pact, Christopher traveled in an Israeli helicopter from a royal palace in Amman to the grounds of the Israeli Parliament. The flight took 20 minutes, about half the time needed to travel by road from Israel’s main airport near Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Times staff writer Michael Parks in Jerusalem contributed to this report.