Israel-Syria Talks Seen as Step to Wider Regional Peace : Mideast: Diplomats plan to expand contacts with the Arab world.

Israel and Syria next week will begin what may turn out to be the most creative phase of the Middle East peace process. If all goes as both parties intend, it may not only end their own half-century of enmity but also produce a formal conclusion to the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, Israeli and U.S. officials said Sunday.

As Israeli and Syrian delegations go into secluded round-the-clock talks outside Washington, U.S. officials will accelerate contacts with “other avenues” in the Arab world, a senior U.S. official said.

The goal of both efforts will be to create a “new equation and a new balance” in which Israel’s evolving relationship with Syria is part of a wider regional arrangement covering everything from trade to distribution of water resources, Israeli Foreign Ministry Director General Uri Savir said Sunday.

The contacts will mean a wider circle of stops during Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s Middle East shuttles and stepped-up telephone contacts by senior White House and State Department officials.

“We want to create a greater sense of inclusiveness so others feel they are parties to peace, not just on the periphery,” a ranking official accompanying Christopher said Sunday.

“Comprehensive” has become the code word--and distinguishing characteristic--of the peace process’ final phase.

“Real peace with Syria means the end of the Arab-Israeli wars. It means peace, a warm and lasting peace . . . with countries in the region beyond the immediate neighbors,” Christopher said in announcing resumed talks Saturday night.

On Sunday, Christopher wound up his latest Mideast shuttle with a joint news conference in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who said “there is great hope” that Syria and Israel “can conclude [an agreement] as early as possible.”

Savir said regional cooperation “is essential not only for the stability of the Middle East but also if the region has any future in terms of the necessary economic growth.”

Savir, who attended secret talks in Oslo two years ago with the Palestine Liberation Organization, will head the Israeli delegation in two rounds of three-day talks with Syria next week and the week after.

Since the peace process was launched in Madrid in 1991, Israel has established high-level contacts with Oman, Tunisia, Qatar and Morocco.

It also has regular contacts with Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Algeria through U.S.-orchestrated multilateral talks launched in 1992, U.S. officials said.

In approaching the talks with Syria, Israeli officials said they will bring fresh ideas to the table and not merely try to pick up where they left off. The talks deadlocked last June over security issues.

Savir called for an end to the “taboos” that blocked peace efforts in the past. “We should not be paralyzed in our policy analysis and policy-making by the way that Syria was and the way we saw Syria in past decades,” he said.

“I remember a lot of people, including myself, who did not believe ‘Gaza first’ [the policy of handing over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians] would work. Or that [Jordan’s King] Hussein would sign [a peace treaty] before Assad,” he said.

Some of those who are skeptical about the peace process have in the past used the wrong yardstick to evaluate the national interest of the players, he said.

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had become a partner in peace, for example, not because he supports Zionism but because it is in his own self-interest, Savir said.

Israel and Syria need to create an environment in which both states are strategically and economically “dependent” on peace “for a very long time,” he added.

This approach will require a significantly different mind set than in past negotiations that focused on how and when to trade land, specifically the strategic Golan Heights overlooking Israel’s northeastern border, for peace.

The revived Syrian talks will build on the achievements and confidence-building measures in the peace process since the first peace with Egypt in 1978. For all the rough edges and tough moments, implementation has so far been “quite satisfying” and provided a degree of confidence in the process, Savir said.

“We have a treaty with Egypt which has more ups than downs. We have an ongoing peace process with the Palestinians with a clear road map. And we have a good peace experience with Jordan,” he said.

Syria and Lebanon are the last neighboring countries yet to make peace with Israel. It is therefore logical that treaties with them should bring about diplomatic relations between Israel and the rest of the Arab world, he added.

Through its state-controlled media, Syria sounded an optimistic note Sunday. The resumption of talks represents a “historic opportunity, now more than ever,” said Baath, the newspaper of the ruling party.

But in Israel on the same day, a leading opposition leader spoke against the talks. “We will certainly do all we can to prevent the government from carrying out its intention to hand over the Golan,” Benjamin Netanyahu, chairman of the Likud Party, told Israel Radio.

He said he will revive a failed effort to require more than a simple majority for passage of any deal in the Israeli parliament that would hand back the territory.