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Israel shrugs off Syrian doubts on peace talks

JERUSALEM: Israel on Monday brushed aside a Syrian threat to shun peace talks due on Wednesday in the United States, saying it would not bow to any tactics aimed at extracting concessions.

A Syrian official in Damascus on Sunday cast doubts on the planned meeting, telling Reuters that officials were evaluating the last talks in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, before deciding whether to go ahead.

Diplomats in Damascus said Syria wanted to ensure progress during the next round, the third since the launch of talks in December ended a 45-month freeze. Damascus wants to regain all of the Golan Heights Israel captured in war 33 years ago.

"There is apparently some sort of tactic here. Israel isn't prepared to accept any tactic that means a precondition for a discussion," Foreign Minister David Levy told Israel Radio.

Israeli officials said Prime Minister Ehud Barak would have to decide whether to travel to the United States this week in any event for a planned Washington summit with U.S. President Bill Clinton and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

"If the talks are put off a few days, or even a week or two, nothing will happen. We've already passed the age when we get excited by requests of this sort," cabinet minister Haim Ramon told Israel's Channel Two television.

"From our standpoint if the Syrians say they need a few more days to prepare, it's quite all right," Ramon said.

Barak took office in July vowing to swap land for peace but has yet to set out the "painful" withdrawal he foresees.

Levy, who took part in the last round of talks, said: "We went into these talks ready of course to discuss the structure of peace and if Syria believes that peace is only for Israel to come and say, 'I am coming down off the Golan Heights,' that isn't peace. It's just capitulation."

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said she had spoken on Sunday to Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara, who has headed Syria's team in the two rounds of talks on ending the more than 50-year-old conflict.

She made no comment on whether the talks would go ahead as planned but neither did she suggest they would be delayed.

Israel has been pushing for Assad's participation in the talks, and Levy told Israel's Army Radio: "Either he relies on his foreign minister and his delegation or he doesn't rely on him -- that's already his matter."

Barak angered Palestinians on Sunday by announcing he would put off the handover of more West Bank land due to have taken place this week under their own September peace deals.

Palestinians fear being shunted aside as Barak pursues a peace deal with Syria, and they denounced the delay as a mockery, having expected to get control of a further 6.1 percent of the West Bank on Thursday.-Reuters