Israeli-Syrian Military Talks Break Without a Breakthrough : Mideast: Washington meetings are relaxed in style but fail to resolve security issues along Golan Heights.

Assessing three days of crucial military-to-military talks, Israel’s army chief of staff said Thursday that he found his Syrian counterpart to be “a professional officer . . . a person that I think we can make a dialogue with.”

A senior U.S. official who attended the negotiations at Ft. McNair, a campus-like military post nestled by the Potomac River, described as “poignant” the interaction between Israeli Lt. Gen. Amnon Shahak and Syrian Lt. Gen. Hikmat Shihabi, two former intelligence officers who have spent their adult lives preparing for war against each other.

But the relaxed, businesslike atmosphere is about the only good news that resulted from the talks. On matters of substance, the most implacable enemies in the troubled Middle East remain far apart.

Early warning stations? Officials said Shahak and Shihabi agreed that there must be some. Syria said that aircraft and satellites should be good enough. Israel demanded on-the-ground installations.

Gestures to demonstrate peaceful intent to the other? Israel called for such steps right away. Syria said that there will be time for that after a peace treaty has been signed.

Still, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher called the meetings “a very important step in the right direction.” He added that the sessions “reflect the determination on both sides to try to find a way to meet their security needs and to make progress toward an agreement.”

After a break of about two weeks for consultations in their home countries, the talks will resume in Washington with senior army officers just below the chief of staff level leading the delegations.

Although neither side has named its representative for the follow-up talks, officials said that they almost certainly will be chosen from among the two major generals on each side who participated in this week’s negotiations.

The purpose of the military-to-military talks is to develop security measures that would assure Israel it will not be attacked from the Golan Heights if it agrees to return the strategic area to Syrian control.

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Syria has long insisted that it will not agree to a peace treaty unless it regains “every atom” of the heights, which Israel occupied during the 1967 Middle East War. Shahak said he made clear in this week’s meetings Israel’s corresponding minimum demand--the condition without which there can be no peace treaty.

“I told General Shihabi that the sense of security and the security arrangements on the ground are essential from the Israeli side for a peace agreement,” Shahak said.

A senior Israeli official said later: “What we are trying to reach is a situation where a future war will be impossible for both sides.”

Overshadowing the negotiations is the political calendar in both Israel and the United States. Officials said that unless Israel and Syria reach a peace agreement by very early next year, the process will be swamped by general election campaigns in the United States and Israel.

For two countries that have been bitter enemies for almost half a century to conduct courteous, professional military talks is a substantial step.

But it has taken almost four years since the October, 1991, Madrid peace conference to reach that point.