Prospects for peace with Syria still "stuck"-Peres

JERUSALEM, June 10 (Reuters) Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres played down today prospects for relaunching talks with Syria over a land-for-peace deal.

Israel has reaffirmed its readiness to talk with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but is seeking assurances in advance that Syria would distance itself from Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militants, Israeli officials said.

But after leaking the existence of secret channels via Turkey and Germany to ask Syria the price it would be willing to pay for the return of the occupied Golan Heights, Israel says it is still waiting for a definitive answer.

Asked if the time had come to talk peace with Syria, Peres told reporters: ''The problem is the Syrians are not ready and are unwilling to negotiate directly with Israel. They want to do it through the United States.

''The United States said: 'Gentlemen, if you want to negotiate, you have to stop being a supporter of terror and you have to stop supporting ... the toppling down of the prime minister of Lebanon -- stop supporting the Hezbollah. And there is where it is stuck for the time being.''' There has been no public response from Damascus to the news of the Israeli diplomatic approaches.

Israeli intelligence chiefs are divided, officials said, over whether Syria genuinely wants to talk about peace or is preparing for war to try to regain the Golan, a strategic plateau captured in the 1967 West Asia war.

Some Israeli political commentators have described the recent leaks about possible peacemaking with Syria as an apparent bid by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to show the Israeli public he had covered all bases should hostilities erupt.

And while Israel and Syria came close in US-sponsored talks in 2000 to a deal on returning the Golan Heights, Olmert's hands could be tied in any new attempt to negotiate a pullout.

PULLOUTS Olmert's approval ratings have plunged to single digits after last year's inconclusive war against Hezbollah, which fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel from land that Israeli soldiers quit in a unilateral withdrawal in 2000.

The conflict forced Olmert, who backed a 2005 troop and settler pullout from the Gaza Strip that has been followed by frequent rocket attacks on Israel, to abandon a peace plan evisaging withdrawal from some areas of the occupied West Bank.

Like Israel, the United States is keen to loosen Assad's ties to Iran, whose nuclear programme and influence in Iraq have caused the two allies concern.

Olmert is scheduled to hold talks with US President George W Bush at the White House on June 19 expected to focus on stalled peacemaking with the Palestinians.

Washington has made clear it wants Israel to make progress on the Palestinian track to strengthen President President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction is locked in a power struggle with Islamist Hamas, its partner in a unity government.

Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said on Friday that ''discussions with Syria wouldn't be a substitute for what we consider to be the most important focus, which is furthering the cause of peace and furthering the dvelopment of a two-state solution with Israel and the Palestinians''.

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