ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 17, 1995 TAG: 9512180091
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: JERUSALEM
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
note: lede
Israel and Syria will open ``a new phase'' of intensive and broad peace negotiations with U.S. mediators in Washington at the end of this month, Secretary of State Warren Christopher announced Saturday.
Christopher made the announcement at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Shimon Peres, three weeks after Peres began an aggressive new effort to bring President Hafez al-Assad of Syria back to the negotiating table and work out a comprehensive Middle East peace.
Christopher, who obtained Assad's agreement to the new talks at a meeting Friday in Damascus, Syria, said senior Israeli and Syrian officials would meet with Americans at a secluded site somewhere near Washington Dec. 27-29, and again a week later after consultations in their respective capitals.
Christopher said he would then return to the Middle East to consult with Assad and Peres on the next step.
``Clearly, we are entering a new phase of negotiations,'' Christopher said. ``Conducting the negotiations at a site near Washington will intensify the discussions. This reflects the very clear desire I have heard from both President Assad and Prime Minister Peres to pick up the pace and make progress as rapidly as possible.''
Peres said he was encouraged by what Christopher had heard from Assad.
``It's a new game, a new time, a new beginning; and we shall move forward together,'' he said.
Israel has treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and has signed an accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization. But it has been unable to work out an agreement with Syria, a major player in the region. At the heart of their dispute are the strategic Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War and later annexed.
Though neither the Israelis nor the Syrians indicated any shift from their previous positions in advance of the new talks, Americans and Israelis seemed confident that the new beginning would not prove stillborn, as all earlier Israeli-Syrian talks have.
Two attempts to open talks on security issues over the past year quickly collapsed, and, until the Nov. 4 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli government regarded the ``Syrian track'' as effectively frozen at least until after Israeli elections next November.
But on taking office, Peres moved immediately to revive the talks. In his first speech to the Israeli Parliament as prime minister Nov. 22, he addressed Assad directly, saying, ``I would like to propose to the president of Syria that we each do our utmost to put an end to the era of wars in the Middle East.''
Tuesday, speaking to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress in Washington, Peres issued an even stronger challenge to Assad.
``Without illusion but with resolve, we stand ready to make demanding decisions, if you are,'' he said.
Though Assad has agreed to negotiations more than once in the past only to walk out later, Israeli officials believe that he is serious this time. They say one reason is that the Syrian leader fears that if the Israelis reach a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians first, they will have less interest in striking a deal with Syria.
The Israelis also think that Assad never believed that Rabin wanted to make peace, but recognizes that Peres really does.
One reason past negotiations stalled was that Rabin insisted on limiting negotiations to security issues and restricting the level of contacts to ambassadors and senior officers.
Peres, who was then foreign minister, was known to be critical of the approach, and on taking charge he declared that he was open to any form of negotiations and with no preconditions.
Accordingly, the talks in Washington will open with no set agenda or conditions, officials said. Instead, drawing on the experience of past negotiations with Palestinians, senior officials from both sides will hold intensive meetings in a secret location to explore approaches and issues in an informal and nonpublic setting.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Shimon Peresby CNBMounted aggressive effort color