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Assad-Peres summit

depends on Israeli

Golan pullout: Syria

DAMASCUS: Syria late on Tuesday played down reports of an impending meeting between President Hafez al-Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, with an official saying such a summit depended on an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

The official at the information ministry declined to confirm or deny a statement by Peres that Assad had agreed to meet him, telling AFP: "Such a summit still depends on the end of the Israeli occupation" of the Golan Heights.

Peres had said in an interview published Tuesday in the Jerusalem Post that Assad had agreed to meet him in a bid to unfreeze their countries' stalled peace talks, but refused to set a firm date for the summit.

Peres said he had sent a message to the Syrian president via US intermediaries saying that if both sides are sincere in wanting to achieve a peace deal this year, "we have to fly high and fast, not low and slow."

"This means that we have to negotiate differently, we have to raise the level of negotiations to the top leadership of the countries," Peres said he told the Syrian leader.

"I got a reply (from Assad via the Americans, saying) 'Yes, we can meet but I can't say the date,'" Peres was quoted as saying in a weekend interview with the English-language daily.

"I want to see what is the pace of his movement," Peres added.

Israel and Syria resumed US-brokered peace negotiations late last year but made little progress on key issues during several sessions.

The talks were suspended early last month during a wave of Islamic suicide bombings in Israel and are not expected to resume before Israeli general elections at the end of May.

The main sticking point in the negotiations is Syria's demand for a full and unconditional Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed by the Jewish state in 1981.-AFP