Syria, Israel Agree to Hold Military Talks

Israel and Syria agreed on terms for high-level military talks that could clear the way for a peace treaty, Secretary of State Warren Christopher announced Wednesday.

U.S. officials described this decision as the most significant accord in almost four years between the Middle East’s most implacable adversaries.

“This is an important development, but there still are significant gaps between the parties, and there is much hard work to be done,” Christopher said in a statement.

Wednesday’s agreement sets the agenda for talks in Washington next month between Israeli and Syrian military experts over security arrangements on the Golan Heights. Those discussions are a necessary prelude to Israel’s withdrawal from the strategic plateau it has occupied since the 1967 Middle East War.

The negotiations will be the first between Israeli and Syrian military experts since talks between the army chiefs of staff broke off in acrimony last December after one session.

A senior U.S. official said the agreement, cobbled together through U.S. mediators, marks the first time since the 1991 Madrid peace conference “that Israel and Syria reached some sort of understanding.”

While the accord is a clear sign of progress, it also underscores the glacial pace of the Israel-Syria negotiations.

In the four years that it has taken Jerusalem and Damascus to agree on terms of reference for security talks, Israel and Jordan have negotiated, signed and carried out a peace treaty, and Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization have begun to establish Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

U.S. officials see a positive aspect to the talks’ deliberate pace, as Syrian President Hafez Assad, whose insistence on haggling over every comma and semicolon is the primary reason for the slow going, has a history of scrupulous adherence to agreements--once he is satisfied with them.

But the time available in the immediate future for Israel and Syria to settle generations of animosity is growing dangerously short. Unless agreement is reached on a peace pact by the end of this year, the negotiations will be overshadowed by general election campaigns in both Israel and the United States.

In Jerusalem, Yossi Beilin, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, hailed Wednesday’s agreement but warned that much more is needed at a much faster pace if peace is to be achieved.

“This is progress,” Beilin said. “I congratulate the Americans for their part in achieving this progress. I hope that this progress will bring the breakthrough which is needed in order to achieve peace in the relatively short time that is left until the current window of opportunity is closed.”

Beilin and other senior Israeli officials have called repeatedly on the Syrians to upgrade the level of peace talks and to open a secret channel of direct negotiations.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recently complained to an interviewer that it was impossible to make the sort of difficult concessions each side must make through an intermediary.

“The real breakthrough that we are all expecting hasn’t come yet, and that is higher-level talks,” a senior Israeli official said. “This type of negotiations now--whether ambassadors or between army officers--will not bring peace.”

The Israeli and Syrian ambassadors to the United States have been negotiating regularly since they resumed talks in March. But higher level contacts have all been done indirectly through U.S. go-betweens, primarily Christopher and Dennis Ross, his top Middle East assistant.

The agreement announced Wednesday was the result of talks, in separate visits to Washington this month, by Rabin and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh.

Details were tied down through telephone conversations, ending with a call Tuesday night between Christopher and Shareh.

Christopher said Ross will visit Israel and Syria next week to open substantive discussions on security and other issues. Christopher said he will travel to the region sometime next month, before the resumption of the military-to-military talks.

U.S. officials earlier reported progress--although no agreements--on various political issues. But the negotiations seemed to founder on security questions--such as creation of a demilitarized zone between the two countries.

Syria has said it will make peace only if it gets back the Golan Heights. Israel has replied that it will withdraw from the heights only if it obtains adequate assurances that Syria will not use the plateau for attacks on Israel.

The Israelis suggested demilitarizing the entire Golan Heights, in effect restoring Syrian sovereignty but prohibiting Syria from stationing troops there. Syria responded that if it were unable to put its forces on the restored Syrian territory, Israel should be required to pull its troops back from the border an equal distance. The Israelis balked at such a proposal.

A senior U.S. official said the agreement announced Wednesday includes “an understanding on how to approach” the dispute over demilitarized zones. But he declined to provide details.

State-owned Israel Radio said cryptically that the “main point of the agreement is that there will be equality of security arrangements, but not geographical equality.” It did not elaborate.

Kempster reported from Washington and Curtius from Jerusalem.