Israel, Syria air peace talks as Lebanon reaches accord

JERUSALEM — Israel and Syria disclosed Wednesday they have been holding indirect talks through Turkish mediators since February 2007 and pledged in a joint statement to pursue negotiations "with good faith and an open mind."

The announcement came on the same day as a Lebanon peace agreement that acknowledged the political rise of Hezbollah, a Shiite militia supported by Syria and Iran.

Syrian President Bashar Assad first revealed the negotiations last month, saying Turkish mediators had informed him Israel was willing to return the disputed Golan Heights to Syria.

Israel refused to confirm the talks at the time, but an Israeli official said Wednesday's coordinated statements out of Jerusalem, Damascus and Ankara were a sign that "the discussions had advanced" to a more serious level.

The Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. government had been "fully briefed" from the start on the initiative.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, "We were not surprised by it and we do not object to it."

Israeli and Syrian negotiating teams have been in Turkey since Monday. Officials in Damascus said the Israeli and Syrian delegations are staying in the same Ankara hotel, with a Turkish mediator shuttling between their rooms. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert disclosed last month that the two countries had exchanged messages through Turkish officials about peace talks.

One Western diplomat described the talks as "a racquetball game between advisers where the Turks are the ball."

The talks center on Syria's demand that Israel return the Golan Heights, which Israeli forces captured in 1967.

About 20,000 Israeli settlers now live in the Golan, a rugged terrain of Israeli military bases, vineyards and cattle ranches that many senior Israeli army officers say still holds strategic value for the nation's defense.

The two sides came tantalizingly close to securing a peace deal in 2000, but they broke down over questions of Syrian access to the Galilee.

In the new talks, Syria sought a firm commitment that Israel would give up all the disputed land.

On Wednesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said Syria would not have gone forward if Israel had not offered such assurances.

In exchange for the Golan Heights, Israel probably will expect Syria to sign a peace treaty with Israel, end its support for Hamas political leaders based in Damascus and sever ties to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon who receive critical Iranian money and weapons via Syria.

Observers and analysts said Israel also hopes an accord would weaken Syria's ties with both Iran and Hezbollah.

Diplomats in Damascus say the Syrian leadership maintains deep strategic ties with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that could take a generation to unravel.

"You cannot put breaking with Iran as a precondition" for negotiations, said one Western diplomat. "But you can develop a relationship with Syria and use it to eventually undermine the relationship."

News of the peace talks came on the same day that Lebanon's warring factions agreed to end an 18-month political impasse that spilled into street fighting earlier this month with deadly clashes between opposition forces led by Hezbollah's Shiite Muslim fighters and pro-government Sunni Muslim fighters.

The deal signed after six days of talks in the Qatari capital of Doha cleared the way for army chief of staff Michel Suleiman to ascend to the presidency in a parliamentary vote scheduled for Sunday.

The breakthrough gives the Iranian-backed Hezbollah camp its two main demands: veto power over all government decisions and a revised electoral law that's designed to better represent Lebanon's disparate sects.

Information from The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and Los Angeles Times is included in this report.