The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
40°F
Current Conditions
Overcast clouds
View complete weather report

Color Scheme

Subscribe now

Israel, Syria Agree To Renew Peace Talks Washington D.C. Is Site For ‘New Phase’ Of Dialogue

New York Times

Israel and Syria will open “a new phase” of intensive and broad peace negotiations with U.S. mediators in Washington at the end of the 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 in Damascus, Syria, on Friday, said senior Israeli and Syrian officials would meet with Americans at a secluded site somewhere near Washington from Dec. 27 to 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.