Hurriyet English with wires
OluÅŸturulma Tarihi: Haziran 19, 2008 13:00
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Thursday ruled out direct talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the sidelines of an international summit in Paris next month. Israeli Defense Minister said Thursday he did not expect direct peace talks before next year.
Assad and Olmert will be in Paris as guests of French President Nicolas Sarkozy who is to announce the launch of a new Mediterranean Union on July 13.
Israel and Syria launched last month a resumption of peace talks under Turkey's auspices after an eight-year break, as a result of a process that Olmert said began in February 2007. Â
"This is not like drinking tea," Assad was quoted by the AFP speaking to reporters in New Delhi when asked about the possibility of direct talks between the two.
"The meeting between me and the Israeli prime minister will be meaningless without technocrats, who are the experts, laying the foundation," said Assad who is on a four-day state visit to India.
"Only sending signals with no real result is meaningless."
His comments follow Israeli President Shimon Peres publicly calling on Syria on Sunday to enter direct talks, citing the example of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who forged a peace deal with the Jewish state.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday he did not expect direct Israeli-Syrian peace talks before next year, and not without US sponsorship, the AFP reported.
During a visit to France, Barak described ongoing indirect talks between Israel and Syria as "preliminary contacts, not yet negotiations" in an interview to Le Monde daily.
"I don't think that we will have negotiations before the end of the year and not without the contribution of the Americans who are the only ones capable of filling the gaps," Barak said.
Assad had said direct peace talks with Israel were unlikely before 2009 and depended on the fate of Olmert, who has been dogged by calls for his resignation over a graft scandal.
Turkey has announced Israel and Syria left indirect peace talks "extremely satisfied" on Monday and will hold two more rounds in July under its mediation.
Syria wants the full return of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognized by the international community.
Israel says any peace deal depends on Syria distancing itself from Iran and severing ties with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip last June. Â
The last round of peace talks broke down in 2000 over the fate of the Golan Heights. Those talks were hosted by the United States.Â
Photo: AFP
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