Israel and Syria Agree to Resume Talks for Peace

Syria and Israel agreed Wednesday to resume long-stalled peace talks next week in Washington. President Clinton, making the announcement, said peace “is within our grasp, and we must seize it.”

“We are at a pivotal moment in the Middle East peace process,” he said, “one that can shape the face of the region for generations to come.”

But he dodged substantive inquiries about the negotiations that broke off more than 3 1/2 years ago and refused to say whether Israel will return the strategic Golan Heights to Syria, something that Damascus says the Israelis agreed to in the earlier discussions.

Next week’s meeting will represent the highest-level contacts between the two enemies since Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh met then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir at groundbreaking Middle East peace talks in Madrid eight years ago.

For Israel, Syria’s decision to send its foreign minister to the bargaining table was a major victory. During the round of talks at Maryland’s Wye Plantation that ended in 1996, each side was represented by an ambassador and by technicians.

A senior U.S. official characterized as a “major, major change” Syria’s decision to raise the level of the contacts. The American said senior political officials will conduct the talks after the opening session. He said Shareh and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak would join in the talks from time to time but not on a daily basis.

The region’s leaders, politicians and residents welcomed the news of a resumption in negotiations between Israel and Syria, although some Israelis were apprehensive about possible concessions that their government is prepared to make.

Clinton seemed elated by what he called a “breakthrough”--one toward which his administration has worked for months behind the scenes--but he also was mindful of the difficult talks ahead. “There can be no illusion here,” the president cautioned. “On all tracks, the road ahead will be arduous, the task of negotiating agreements will be difficult. Success is not inevitable.”

For months, Syria had insisted that it was ready to resume talks--but only if Israel acknowledged that just before the last round broke up, Yitzhak Rabin, the late Israeli prime minister, had agreed to return all of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.

U.S. officials said Syrian President Hafez Assad agreed for the first time in a three-hour meeting Tuesday with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Damascus, the capital, that the talks could resume with each side asserting its own understanding of the state of play 3 1/2 years ago.

“We are at the point where there are no preconditions,” said the senior administration official, who indicated that Washington couldn’t have said that earlier as the two sides sought to tailor the talks to their own purposes.

“Clearly the agreement to resume talks means that the parties understand that their needs can be met through this [negotiating] process,” Albright said.

Officials said Albright was virtually certain that she had secured an agreement when she left Damascus after talking with Assad. After a breakfast meeting with Barak on Wednesday, she was even more certain, the officials said.

But the final formula wasn’t nailed down until Clinton spoke by telephone later in the day with Assad and Barak.

In the second half of a diplomatic doubleheader Wednesday, Albright met with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who agreed to continue negotiations with Israel over a final peace agreement between the longtime antagonists. The talks stalled when the Palestinians refused to negotiate until Israel stops building Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

On Wednesday, Barak sought to defuse the issue by pledging not to award new contracts for construction in settlements until March, at the earliest. But he didn’t agree to stop construction on units already underway, in effect allowing the continuation of the construction activity that enraged the Palestinians.

Clinton praised his statement as “a good first step.”

In a joint news conference with Albright, Barak said about 1,800 houses are under construction in Israel’s largest settlements. He said there is no reason to issue new contracts because to do so “is harmful and will not strengthen our position in the negotiation process. Current construction, of course, shall continue.”

Before Albright’s meeting with Arafat, Palestinian negotiators scoffed at Barak’s pledge. But the Palestinian leader decided to go ahead with the talks.

As he emerged from his meeting with Albright in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Arafat welcomed as “good news” the agreement by Israel and Syria to resume talks. “The Palestinians are happy for that. It is very important that we see progress on all tracks, and I hope it will be successful,” he said.

Privately, however, the Palestinians were stunned by the news and feared that their own hard-fought dealings with the Israelis would be shunted out of the spotlight, or that the Israelis might play one party against the other for negotiating leverage.

Initial reaction from Syria was muted. Assad, through a spokesman, was said to be pleased about the plan to resume talks “from the point where they left off.”

Members of Barak’s government were effusive. Former army Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, who previously negotiated with the Syrians and now serves as Barak’s tourism minister, said: “This is a historic opportunity to change the face of the Middle East.”

“At last we can move forward with the Palestinians on one arm and Syria on another,” said Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, an architect of the original peace accords.

The political opposition was far less pleased. The right-wing Likud Party accused Barak of a complete surrender to Syria.

“It seems Barak has caved in and agreed to the Syrian demand for full withdrawal [from the Golan Heights] as a condition to renewing talks, and I view this as very grave indeed,” said Likud legislator Danny Naveh. “It is a shame he lacks the courage to face the public and tell them that this is the price.”

Barak’s office said late Wednesday that it hadn’t agreed to any preconditions.

Some of the most bitter anxiety came from residents of the Golan Heights, who stand to lose their homes. They plan an emergency meeting today to plot a strategy of resistance.

“I don’t even want to mention that Israel is going to lose a third of its water to a sick dictator,” longtime Golan activist Yehuda Harel said.

Israel and Syria have tried but failed twice in recent years to make peace. But the breakthrough may reflect a new conviction by both nations that the time is ripe for peace.

As Clinton put it: “I think it is clear that both parties have sufficient confidence that their needs can be met through negotiations or they would not have reached this agreement today.”

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Chen reported from Washington and Kempster from Jerusalem. Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Jerusalem also contributed to this report.

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Major Issues

Key issues in dispute between Israel and Syria:

* How much territory Israel will relinquish. Syria demands all of the Golan Heights, a high ground overlooking northeastern Israel that Syria lost in the 1967 Six-Day War.

* Whether Syria will agree to normal diplomatic relations with Israel, including an exchange of ambassadors.

* The timing of the Israeli pullback and whether it will be undertaken in stages.

* Security arrangements after a pullback. The Golan

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Heights have served as a pro-tective barrier for Israel, which is seeking substitute security arrangements, including an early warning system of imminent attack.