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Mubarak heads to Syria for peace talks

CAIRO: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left for Syria on Saturday for talks with President Hafez al-Assad on the latest delays in peace talks with Israel, airport sources said.

They said there was a possibility Mubarak would hold talks with Jordan's King Abdullah in Amman after his visit to Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was to have met Syria's Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara on Wednesday in a third round of US-mediated talks, whose resumption in December broke a 45-month freeze, but the talks were called off because the sides could not agree on the agenda.

Syria wants Israel to commit itself to returning the strategic Golan Heights it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, while Israel wants first to discuss normalisation and security arrangements.

During talks in West Virginia this month, U.S. President Bill Clinton gave Barak and Shara a draft proposal for peace between the two countries that have been locked in a state of war for more than 50 years.

State department officials said experts from each side would arrive in Washington separately over the next two weeks for talks on the draft.

King Abdullah, who diplomats say played a role in bringing Syria back to the negotiating table last month, said on Wednesday he was optimistic Syria and Israel would resolve their differences and carry on talking.

Jordan signed a peace deal with Israel in 1994.

On Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa confirmed that Egypt would show up for upcoming Middle East talks in Moscow, but said regional cooperation could not move forward if other peace tracks were stuck.

Egypt had long resisted the resumption of multinational talks, saying it first wanted to see Israel make progress on the Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian fronts of the peace process.

Russia, formally co-sponsor with the United States of Middle East peace efforts, had hardly sent out invitations to the Moscow gathering next month before peace negotiations hit new setbacks.

Aside from the postponed Syrian-Israeli talks, Israel has angered Palestinians by delaying a planned handover of another 6.1 percent of West Bank land to Palestinian self-rule.

Syria and Lebanon have already turned down invitations to the Moscow meeting.

In 1979 Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, although relations have remained chilly. It has played a vital role in assisting negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians since their 1993 Oslo interim peace deal.-Reuters