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Envoys try to arrange Israel-Syria summit

Israeli envoys holding a new round of indirect peace talks with Syrian counterparts in Turkey will propose the leaders of the two states meet at a conference in France next month, Israeli political sources said yesterday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched Turkish-mediated negotiations last month but there has been no word on prospects for a summit given the gaps between the sides’ bedrock demands.

Both men are to attend a July 13 summit of a union of European and Mediterranean countries in Paris and Olmert, who sent aides to resume talks in Turkey on Saturday, has offered to meet Assad on the sidelines, the sources said.

“The idea isn’t necessarily to hold an hours-long conversation, just a face-to-face encounter that would, in itself, serve to take things forward,” one source said. “This is one of the fresh ideas that is being raised in Turkey.”

According to the source, Olmert aides Yoram Turbowicz and Shalom Turjeman held indirect talks with Syrian counterparts on Sunday and were continuing yesterday. There was no confirmation on this from Syrian or Turkish officials.

The last round of indirect Israeli-Syrian talks took place last month at an Istanbul hotel, with Turkish diplomats shuttling between the delegations’ rooms.

Israeli political sources had no immediate word on the venue of the current talks.

The last direct talks — between then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and then-Syrian foreign minister Farouq al-Shara — stalled in 2000 over Israel’s reluctance to return the entire Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured from Syria in a 1967 war.

In related news, Olmert told visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel will continue building new homes in occupied East Jerusalem, rebuffing her criticism of plans for settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian areas.

Israeli media reported yesterday that Olmert told Rice that while Israel would not confiscate more Palestinian land, it would build in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem it expected to keep as part of any final settlement with the Palestinians.
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