Israel's Peres calls for peace talks with Syria

JERUSALEM, July 19 (Reuters) Israeli President Shimon Peres called today for Syrian and Israeli leaders to meet and resume long-stalled peace talks between the two countries.

The Nobel peace laureate told a visiting Chinese envoy that ''if Syria wants real peace, there is no alternative to holding direct negotiations with Israel,'' a statement from the president's office said.

Peres, who pledged to campaign for Middle East peace when he was sworn in as head of state on Sunday, said the leaders of Israel and Syria should meet to ''symbolise mutual recognition as an opening stage'' to negotiations.

The presidency is a largely ceremonial post in Israel. While politically influential, Israeli presidents have no authority to set government policy.

Talks between Syria and Israel collapsed in 2000 without resolving the fate of the Golan Heights, a plateau occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised internationally.

Both sides have signalled a readiness to resume talks in recent months, largely in messages passed through envoys, though each has set conditions the other has balked at meeting.

In a speech in Damascus on Tuesday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Syria would resume talks with Israel if the Jewish state would commit first to a complete Golan withdrawal.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has demanded Syria sever ties with Iran and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, and the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, before further peace talks could take place.

Israeli officials told Reuters on Wednesday that the Jewish state has been using Turkey as a go-between to pass messages to Assad since last February, when Olmert visited Ankara.

Israel has also turned to United Nations special envoy Michael Williams, who recently briefed Olmert on talks he held in Damascus.

Peres, 83, won a Nobel prize along with the late Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for his role in reaching a 1993 interim peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

REUTERS ARB PM1720