Barak: Clinton presses for Syrian accord before campaigns
By Steve Rodan
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, March 3, 2000
JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged that U.S.
President Bill Clinton is pressing for Israel to complete a peace agreement
with Syria within the next two months.
But a senior minister said U.S. officials have warned Israel against
signing a peace treaty with Syria given the current instability in Damascus.
In what ministers said appeared to be an argument for full withdrawal
from the Golan, Barak told his Cabinet that Clinton wants a peace agreement
by May. The prime minister said Clinton believes that after that month he
will be preoccupied with the presidential and congressional elections. He
predicted an Islamic wave of violence should efforts fail to reach a peace
accord with Syria.
The prime minister spent two hours briefing his ministers in the first
formal discussion on Syria and Lebanon. At the session, Barak expressed
doubt over the chances of a peace accord with Syria, citing the health of
President Hafez Assad as well as his minority Alawite status in Sunni Syria.
Barak said Assad is being more tough in negotiations than Egypt had been in
1978 because the president wants to please the Sunni majority in his country
and in the Arab world.
The prime minister listed his priorities in a peace agreement with
Syria. These include early-warning, security arrangements, including
demilitarization that is asymmetrical in favor of the much smaller Jewish
state, normalization and water rights.
"There's no doubt that everyone is talking about a full withdrawal from
the Golan Heights," Housing Minister Yitzhak Levy said.
Regional Cooperation Minister Shimon Peres said the dispute with Syria
appears to focus on Damascus's demand for the Sea of Galilee. Peres said in
a meeting with a European envoy on Monday that agreeing to withdrawal to the
Sea of Galilee would turn Israel's reservoir into an international waterway.
In Damascus, the Syrian Al Baath daily on Monday said this was the first
time that Barak has formally recognized Rabin's commitment to full
withdrawal from the Golan Heights. But the daily said Barak continues to
pursue a contradictory policy.
At the session, Interior Minister Natan Sharansky, a leading figure in
the previous government of Likud Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, said
U.S. State Department, Pentagon, military and CIA officials have warned
against an Israeli peace treaty with a weak Assad. U.S. officials, he said,
had expressed concern over the instability of the Assad regime and the
prospects of a succession by the president's son, Bashar.
During the six-hour session, Education Minister Yossi Sarid warned
against a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. Sarid told the ministers that
such a pullback would guarantee Hizbullah attacks on Israel and another
Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
But Industry and Trade Minister Ran Cohen called for an immediate
pullback from Lebanon.
Israel television said the government has transferred $87 million to the
army to prepare for a withdrawal from Lebanon. The army has been building
fortifications in northern Israel designed to protect residents from
Hizbullah attacks.
On Monday, Barak's office denied a report in that day's Israeli Haaretz
daily that the United States was preparing to renew talks between Israel and
Syria. The office said there was no breakthrough in efforts to revive
negotiations.
The newspaper said Clinton relayed an Israeli proposal for Barak to
discuss delineating the 1967 border with Syria in exchange for a ceasefire
in Lebanon. Haaretz said Assad rejected the proposal.
But Justice Minister Yossi Beilin said on Monday that the United States
is trying to bridge what he termed a gap that is not wide between Israel and
Syria.
"The contacts are continuing and they are intensive," Israeli deputy
Foreign Minister Nawaf Masalha said. "I think that next month the
negotiation will resume between Israel and Syria."
But Foreign Minister David Levy later denied that negotiations with
Syria would be renewed within the next few weeks. He said Israel would not
agree to withdraw to the 1967 border.
"They [the Syrians] will not sit on the shores of the Sea of Galilee,"
Levy said. "And we will not share water."
Friday, March 3, 2000
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