Only two days after arch-hawk Ariel Sharon won power in Israel, a war of words erupted with the Palestinians yesterday over the future of peace talks.
Forming a cohesive ruling alliance and dealing with the Palestinians against the backdrop of a four-month-old revolt in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are the most urgent challenges facing Sharon after his crushing election defeat of Ehud Barak.
PHOTO: AFP
One of the new Israeli leader's advisers, Zalman Shoval, rejected a Palestinian call to pick up peace talks where they left off under the outgoing Labor prime minister.
"Everything that was spoken about or said ... is not binding on Israel or any government," Shoval told Israel Radio, referring to proposals made by Barak in a series of talks with Palestinians that began in July and ended last month.
The Palestinian Authority had called on Wednesday for the resumption of negotiations "from the point they have reached."
Shoval's dismissal of that idea drew an angry reply from Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
"The Palestinian side rejects the statement by Zalman Shoval, which indicated a call to destroy peace accords and abort efforts to revive the peace process," he said.
Barak, heavily beaten in Tuesday's election, had been reported to have offered the Palestinians more than 90 percent of the West Bank and compromises on sovereignty over Arab East Jerusalem.
Syria told Sharon, a former general, that Israel would have to return all the territory occupied in a 1967 Middle East war if it wanted peace with its neighbors.
"We tell everybody these are our conditions for peace," Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in remarks published in the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper yesterday.
"We are ready to resume negotiations with whoever can implement them," Assad added in his first public comment on Sharon since the pugnacious right-winger's election.
Syria has held sporadic peace talks with Israel since 1991 but they broke off a year ago in a dispute over the return of the Syrian Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 war.
Assad spoke of a "total freeze" in talks. "The Israelis in their proposals are far away from seeking real peace," he said.
Abdel-Rahman said the Palestinians would await the policies of a new Israeli government, but said Shoval's remarks showed "a desire of the extremist camp to move the clock backwards."
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