Israel, Syria Break Ice in Talks, Plan Next Round

Wrapping up their highest-level meetings ever, Israel and Syria on Thursday agreed to a new round of talks aimed at a comprehensive peace settlement that U.S. officials said could permanently transform the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh will return to an undisclosed location near Washington on Jan. 3, when they are expected to delve into concrete details over territorial demands, security arrangements and the nature of their future relations.

Pronouncing the negotiations between Israel and Syria--countries formally and sometimes literally at war for the last 50 years--”off to a good start,” President Clinton cautioned that difficult obstacles still had to be overcome. But clearly, and by all accounts, the ice had been broken, however tentatively.

“We are witnessing a new beginning in the effort to achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East,” Clinton said on the steps of the White House portico as he bade farewell to the two leaders. “That journey will be a difficult one. . . . But the parties are embarked on this path. They have agreed there should be no looking back, for the sake of our generations and generations yet to come.”

Clinton said U.S. diplomats, who chaperoned all of the nearly five hours of talks over the last two days, will assist the Israelis and Syrians “every step of the way.”

At the heart of the conflict between Syria and Israel is the volcanic plateau known as the Golan Heights, fertile territory that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Barak has suggested that he is willing to return most of the land to Syria in exchange for security guarantees and continued control of vital water resources.

Peace with Syria is widely seen as the final link in placing Israel on a normal footing with its long-hostile Arab neighbors.

U.S. officials expect that negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, the Jewish state’s only active war front, will spring from progress with Syria because the Syrian regime of President Hafez Assad controls most of what happens in Lebanon. And Barak wants to complete a wide-ranging peace treaty with the Palestinians in less than a year, while his mandate from May’s election remains strong.

All told, Clinton said, “we can truly set our sights on a new and different Middle East.”

Neither Barak nor Shareh spoke in their brief, final appearance with Clinton and, as on Day One of the talks, they did not shake hands publicly. Shareh’s opening statement Wednesday, in which he recounted Syria’s grievances with Israel and blamed the Jewish state for the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, had angered the Israeli delegation.

Barak did take time to speak to Israeli reporters. Looking relatively upbeat despite the lingering tensions, he said an important “first step” had been taken.

“It was difficult, but we’re on the right track,” Barak told Israeli radio.

Earlier in the day, Shareh told reporters outside his Washington hotel that he was “very satisfied” with his meetings with Barak.

For all the optimism, however, a measure of skepticism and mistrust lingered within the two rival delegations. Shareh’s opening remarks, for example, showed Syria’s hard-line bargaining stance and left a bitter aftertaste for the Israelis.

“The bad news is that Assad’s Syria is as yet not ripe for the normal, direct contact demanded by peace relations,” noted leading Israeli commentator Nachum Barnea. “It is not easy for the Syrians to be photographed with the Zionist demon, for the whole world to see. All the same, they have to make more effort, secretly and publicly, otherwise this train, too, will pass them by.”

Israel and Syria remain at odds over the final border that any Israeli withdrawal from the Golan would etch. At issue is whether Syria would regain territory all the way to the Sea of Galilee, as it demands, or would be kept a few miles from the water, which is what Israel is demanding.

Israeli officials said they used Thursday’s meeting with Shareh to press for “confidence-building measures” that would lower tensions as peace is pursued. Among the most important, the Israelis sought a pledge from the Syrians that they would rein in Hezbollah guerrillas fighting to oust Israeli forces from southern Lebanon.

According to Israeli sources, Shareh agreed to a less specific promise to control the “enemies of peace” as negotiations progress.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said all parties recognized the importance of preventing terrorist activity that could derail the historic talks.

Albright, speaking to reporters shortly after the conclusion of the two-day summit, said the session beginning Jan. 3 would be held at a site close enough to Washington so that Clinton can participate regularly, but isolated enough to allow participants to work without the glare of public scrutiny.

U.S. mediators have favored secluded locations surrounded by high fences when they invite foreign leaders for serious diplomatic negotiations ever since the 1978 Camp David conference led to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.

President Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat met for 12 days at the presidential retreat in rural Maryland, eventually agreeing on what became Israel’s first formal peace treaty with an Arab state.

Although no site has been announced for the Israeli-Syrian talks, officials said they probably will be in northern Virginia, possibly at a CIA safe house.