Does Sharon want peace? Syrians don’t think so
Photo: AFP
Syria: Israel doesn’t want peace
Syrian minister says Israel using pressure on Damascus to avoid peace talks
Syria accused Israel on Tuesday of seeking to exploit intense U.S.-led pressure on Damascus to reject calls for peace talks over the Golan Heights.
Sharon Speaks
Ilan Marciano
Sharon says Israel has no intention of negotiating or signing a peace treaty with Syria, despite Syria's interest in such talks
“Israeli officials are trying to exploit the wave of political, media and psychological pressure on Syria in order to express in a rude manner their hostile attitudes toward Syria,” Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhlallah said in a statement carried by SANA, the official news agency.
He was reacting to a statement attributed to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday in which he said that he would not negotiate with Syria on the return of the Israeli-occupied strategic high ground.
“I don’t intend to enter negotiations with Syria because I don’t want to withdraw from the Golan Heights,” Sharon told parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Jerusalem, according to lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, head of the committee.
'Golan is Syrian Arab territory'
In past talks, Syria has demanded the return of the territory, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed. Israel should not extend its hand to Syria when the nation’s leaders are isolated internationally, Steinitz said Monday.
“No one has the illusion that Israel will end the occupation (of the Golan) willingly,” Dakhlallah said. “It has always geared its attitudes and policies toward the continued occupation of Arab territories as long as it could do that.”
He said Israeli leaders’ repeated refusal to withdraw from the Golan “Will not change the fact that the Golan is a Syrian Arab territory.”
“The Syrians uphold their right to recover and liberate the Golan until the last inch,” Dakhlallah said.
