Damascus poised to shun US Middle East talks

Ian Black - Sept 24, 2007

Syria is expected to rebuff an invitation from the US to attend a grand Middle East peace conference later this year because it does not believes that either the Bush administration or Israel wants to reach a comprehensive regional settlement.

President Bashar al-Assad has made no comment on Sunday's call by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state. But diplomats said yesterday the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Mouallem, will decline the offer when he holds talks at the UN this week - unless he receives ironclad assurances that the event will be more substantial than currently appears likely.

"Syria attaches more importance to the content than the formalities," a senior official said. "We have no interest in going just to have our photos taken."
The conference, centred on the Palestinians and Israel, is expected to be held in the Washington area in mid-November, but the details of the agenda and wider Arab attendance remain uncertain.

Egypt and Jordan, which have peace treaties with Israel, are likely to go. But Saudi Arabia, godfather of the Arab peace initiative, is sending mixed signals. The Syrians and Saudis have been at loggerheads for months over Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and relations with Iran.

The 22-member Arab League, facing a damaging split, has warned it will not take part without a moratorium on Israeli settlement activity on Palestinian territory.

Ms Rice is reportedly seeking to widen the agenda of the conference. According to the state department, she has insisted that the event will be "serious and substantive" and will discuss the "core issues" of the conflict - borders, the status of refugees and the division of Jerusalem.

The last time Syria attended a Middle East peace conference was at Madrid, convened in a burst of optimism after the 1991 Gulf war. But its negotiations with Israel ended without agreement in 2000. Israel and the US are now demanding Syria end its support for Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, which has offices in Damascus, and Lebanon's Hizbullah.

Ms Rice said: "We hope that those who come are committed to helping the Israelis and the Palestinians find a way through. And that means renouncing violence, and working for a peaceful solution." Sidestepping US demands, the senior Syrian official said: "The Americans want to freeze the Palestinian issue in order to finish whatever they want to finish in Iraq. They want to create headlines that they are moving forward on the Palestinian problem. The Israelis would like to impose their own view of the peace process."

The recent Israeli air raid on an unknown target near the Turkish border has also cast doubts on hopes for renewed peace talks between the two countries.

Israel said it did not mind who was invited to the Washington conference, but it would have to be restricted "to the Palestinian track", one official said.

Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, told the Knesset foreign affairs committee yesterday: "This is not a peace conference, but rather an international meeting aimed at offering international support to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process."