Report: Syria now rules out military solution to conflict with Israel

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Last update - 18:14 09/01/2008       
Report: Syria rules out military solution to conflict with Israel
By DPA

Syria's foreign minister said his country was not seeking a military solution to its conflict with Israel and was prepared for negotiations, the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV reported Wednesday.

 

Walid Moallem told al-Arabiya TV that Syria was prepared to hold talks with Israel in line with its drive for peace.

 

"Syria is not looking for a military solution," he said.
 
The minister explained that his country had already accepted the principle of negotiations when it attended a peace conference in Madrid in 1991 and the U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis in November last year.

 

At the Madrid peace conference, which had been sponsored by the United States and the then Soviet Union, Israel entered for the first time into direct talks with Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinians.

 

Moallem reiterated Syria's stance that any negotiations with Israel should go side by side with separate talks between Israel and the Palestinians and the Lebanese.

 

Traditionally, Syria has rejected any separate peace deal with Israel - similar to peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan - to restore the Golan Heights, Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.

 

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