Israeli President Shimon Peres said on Tuesday that Iran and Turkey offered different models for how the Muslim world deals with other countries.
Turkey has mediated peace talks between Israel and Syria, while Israel considers Iran a strategic threat because of its nuclear program, its development of long-range missiles and repeated threats to destroy the Jewish state.
“Many Muslims will have to make their choice between the Iranian school of domination and the Turkish school of cooperation,” Peres said in a speech at Oxford University.
Peres ignored hecklers declaring their support for a Palestinian state and told an audience of about 1,000 students that Israel was negotiating with Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon to find peace in the Middle East.
He also gave his support to US president-elect Barack Obama.
“It’s a great declaration of human rights, the fact that a black person got the top job in our time,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Peres had spoken on Syria and said making peace with Syria depends on whether Damascus was prepared to rein in Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Peres said in a BBC radio interview on Tuesday morning that Syria cannot expect Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights while Iran furthers its influence in Lebanon with the help of Syria.
Israel is not prepared to tolerate an Iranian presence on its border, Peres said.
Peres was apparently referring to Hezbollah, the Iranian and Syrian backed Shiite Muslim militant group which fought Israeli forces in the 2006 war.
Israel has accused Hezbollah of doing the bidding of Syria and Iran, both longtime foes of the Jewish state.
Pro-Syrian radical Palestinian factions also maintain several bases in Lebanon.
“If Syria will understand that they can’t have the Golan Heights and keep Lebanon as a base for the Iranians, then the decision will be clear. But if she wants the Golan Heights back and keeps her bases in Lebanon — which are really controlled and financed by the Iranians — no Israeli will agree to have Iranians on our borders,” Peres said.
Syria has held indirect talks with Israel through Turkish mediation in recent months. Syrian officials have in the past rejected Israeli demands that Damascus drop its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and give up its alliance with Iran as part of a peace deal.
Syria has insisted on the full return of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. US-sponsored direct peace talks with Israel collapsed in 2000 over the extent of Israeli withdrawal from the Golan.
Peres is in London through tomorrow for a series of engagements including talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
His visit comes as Britain’s foreign secretary is making the first visit by a senior British official to Damascus since 2001, urging Syria to promote stability in the region.
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