Israelis, Syrians held 'unofficial' talks: Report

Jerusalem, Jan 16: Unofficial negotiators from Israel and Syria drafted in secret talks from 2004 to 2006 a document they hoped could serve as a framework for a future peace accord, Israel's Haaretz daily said today.

Israeli officials said neither Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert nor his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, had known of the discussions, which Haaretz reported were held in Europe.

''This is the first we have heard of the talks, we have never sanctioned anybody to speak to the Syrians and the prime minister first learned of these conversations through the newspaper report this morning,'' said Miri Eisin, an Olmert spokeswoman.

There was no immediate comment from Syria, which has been pressing publicly for Israel to renew official peace talks, last held in 2000, on the future of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Those negotiations broke down largely over Syria's demand for access to the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main reservoir situated at the base of the heights.

Haaretz said the so-called ''non-paper'' that emerged from the two years of unofficial discussions proposed an Israeli pullout from the Golan to lines Israel held before the 1967 West Asia war in which it captured the strategic plateau.

Under the proposed understandings, Israel would retain control over the waters of the Sea of Galilee, but both the Jewish state and Syria would have joint use of a buffer zone, a park, along its shores.

According to the document, Israel would gradually evacuate Jewish settlements on the Golan Heights and the territory would be demilitarised, the newspaper said.

Haaretz said Alon Liel, a former director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, took part in a series of meetings, from September 2004 to August 2006 with Ibrahim Suleiman, a U.S.-based Syrian, and a European mediator it did not name.

Akiva Eldar, who wrote the newspaper report, said on Israeli Army Radio the European and Suleiman travelled to Damascus eight times and discussed the proposal with Farouq al-Shara, currently a Syrian vice president.

''Walid al-Moualem, Syria's foreign minister, was present at several meetings, as well as another person, a senior general in Syrian intelligence,'' Eldar said, without identifying him.

In remarks quoted by Israel Radio, Liel said he ''did not represent anyone'' in official Israeli circles when he participated in the discussions.

Eldar said the contacts were stopped in August last year, in the wake of a war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, because that was the stage when the Israeli government was supposed to enter into discussions on the basis of those understandings.

Israel and the United States have spurned calls by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to renew official negotiations, saying Damascus must first end its support for Hezbollah and the governing Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

REUTERS

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