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Israel sent fresh signals to Syria as US peace mission fails

JERUSALEM: The Barak government has sent Damascus fresh signals over the Golan Heights after the Clinton administration apparently failed in its latest effort to coax Israel and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

A close aide to both Prime Minister Ehud Barak and assassinated Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin said on Monday that Rabin told Washington in 1993 he would be willing to cede the Golan to Syria in exchange for a full peace.

The aide spoke hours after U.S. President Bill Clinton's special envoy Dennis Ross said a week of shuttle diplomacy had failed to end a month-long Israeli-Palestinian peace deadlock.

In what was seen as the first official confirmation of Syrian claims regarding Rabin's statements, as well as an indirect Barak signal to Damascus, Barak aide Danny Yatom said Rabin told then-U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher:

"If all of Israel's needs are fulfilled, that is, needs in the sphere of security, water (rights) and normalisation, then Israel will be willing to come down from the Golan Heights".

Israeli-Syrian talks, which resumed last December after a 45-month-long freeze, broke down again in January over Barak's rejection of a Syrian demand that Israel commit itself to a full pullout from the Golan, captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The scope of a Golan withdrawal is at the heart of years of U.S.-mediated efforts to make peace between the once arch-foes.

Administration officials, keen to cap Clinton's waning presidency with at least one new Middle East peace treaty, radiated little optimism over the Syrian and Palestinian tracks.

The two sides, whose goal of a Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty by September seems increasingly elusive, are logjammed over the shape of an already overdue handover of more West Bank land.

In Washington, State Department spokesman James Rubin struck a tone of weary realism over Israeli-Syrian negotiations:

Barak has studiously avoided direct commitments over the Golan, allowing only that Israel would need to make "painful compromises" on the Golan in a future peace with Damascus.

Barak insists Syria must first disclose how far it is willing to go to normalise relations and guarantee peace.

He has, however, recently inched towards further signs of flexibility, hinting that predecessors had signalled willingness for a full pullout and adding he would not "erase the past."

Israeli commentators viewed Yatom's remarks to Israel Channel Two Television as a further signal to Damascus.

"The Syrians have requested a public message over Ehud Barak's willingness to pull back to the June 4 lines," said Channel Two diplomatic correspondent Emmanuel Rozen. "Yatom's comments today are certainly part of that public message."

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister David Levy, fighting off a parliamentary no-confidence motion over his warning Israel would retaliate "blood for blood" and "child for child" if Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas attacked northern Israel, was unrepentant.-Reuters