DAMASCUS, 22 August 2006 — Syria downplayed yesterday recent peace signals from Israel, and made it clear that peace could not prevail without the full return of all occupied lands, including the strategic Golan Heights.

Earlier, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter had said yesterday that Israel should resume negotiations with Syria and, in exchange for peace, give up the Golan Heights. Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, had appointed an official at the Foreign Ministry to study the file on negotiations with Syria, he said.

Former Syrian Vice President Mohammad Zuhair Masharqa said in a front-page article in the Al-Baath newspaper of the ruling Baath party, that peace should be searched by all available means, adding that “if peace is a strategic choice for Syria, it should be based on pertaining UN resolutions ... and the land-for-peace principle.”

“There would be no surrender of any of our rights, no compromise on any issue and no surrender of one iota of our soil,” he stressed. Masharqa, however, cast doubts on Israel’s intention to achieve peace, saying: “Undoubtedly, Israel is not desirous to achieve peace and it has greed for (our) lands and water.”

The government-controlled Tishrin newspaper said expectations were high that Israel would break the cease-fire in Lebanon and try to attack definite sites of the Lebanese Hezbollah party “to raise the morale of its army and to restore the (Israeli) society’s confidence after the severe shock.”

Suleiman Hadad, a legislator, was also skeptic of Israel’s peace intentions, saying: “Israel’s acts contradict its words ... If it really wants peace with Syria, it has to endorse overtly the land- for-peace principle, then there would be no problem.” In Tel Aviv, Dichter had said in a radio interview yesterday that Israel could give up the occupied Golan Heights in return for a true peace with Syria. “We have paid similar territorial prices for peace with Jordan and Egypt,” he told Israel Army Radio.

Dichter added, however, that the question of water and the Sea of Galilee (where before 1967 Syrian troops sat only meters from the northeastern shore) was one which he would not give up on easily.

“Any political process is preferable to a military-fighting process, be it with Syria or with Lebanon,” the former head of the Israeli Shin Bet internal security service said.

But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday ruled out any resumption of peace talks with Syria, which stalled for more than six years ago, as long as Damascus continues to support “terrorism.” “As long as Syria continues to support terrorism, there is no basis for negotiations,” Olmert said. “When Syria stops support for terror, when it stops giving missiles to terror organizations, then we will be happy to negotiate with them,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres made a similar statement. “I do not think the time has come for such talks, if the Syrians are serious about wanting a return to negotiations they only have to let us know,” the veteran statesman and Nobel peace laureate told Israeli public radio.