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Clinton to discuss Syria-Israel peace with Assad in Geneva

DHAKA: US President Bill Clinton said on Monday he would meet Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in Switzerland to try to revive Syrian-Israeli peace talks that broke off in January over the fate of the Golan Heights.

"I do intend to go to Switzerland to meet with President Assad and we'll just have to see what comes out of the talks," Clinton told a news conference in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka at the start of a one-week tour of South Asia.

Syrian-Israeli talks broke off in January in disagreement over whether Israel should commit itself in advance to full withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Israel wants to start by discussing security and other elements of a peace deal.

White House spokesman Jake Siewert said the Clinton-Assad talks were scheduled for Geneva on Sunday, but had no further details. The two leaders last met in Geneva in 1994.

Clinton said: "I don't want to unduly raise expectations, but I think that this is an appropriate thing for me to do to try to get this back on track so that our objective of having a comprehensive peace can go forward.

"We have worked very hard with the parties to get the Palestinian and Israeli track back going and they are doing very, very well indeed. And I think this is the next logical step."

Israel and Syria agreed to resume peace talks after a four-year freeze late last year but a round of U.S.-sponsored negotiations in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, in January ended with the two sides disagreeing on which issues to take up first.

Syria has wanted the talks to concentrate first on the shape of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau which Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East War. Israel has preferred to talk first about security issues.

Diplomats said that intensive diplomatic and other efforts were still being exerted to solve the problems that have so far blocked the resumption of negotiations.

Assad himself has so far stayed away from face-to-face negotiations, instead sending Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in Shepherdstown.

Shara and Barak initially had agreed to resume their talks in the United States on January 20 but the session was postponed indefinitely with Syria saying more time was needed to assess the initial round talks.-Reuters