TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Syria Agrees To Attend Mideast Talks In U.S.

ADVERTISEMENT

By ANNE GEARAN, The Associated Press

Published: November 26, 2007

WASHINGTON - Arab holdout Syria agreed Sunday to attend a Mideast peace conference called by President Bush to restart talks to resolve the six-decade conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, yet expectations for the summit remained low. The two sides came to Washington without agreeing on basic terms for their negotiations.

Bush invited the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to separate meetings today at the White House to prepare for the centerpiece of his Mideast gathering: an all-day session Tuesday in Annapolis, Md. It is to be the only time that Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meet together, and their three-way handshake is expected to be the conference's symbolic high point.

"The broad attendance at this conference by regional states and other key international participants demonstrates the international resolve to seize this important opportunity to advance freedom and peace in the Middle East," Bush said in a statement Sunday.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her deputy for the Mideast region, still trying to write a framework for talks that their U.S. hosts had hoped would be complete by now. Rice's spokesman said the last-minute work is not surprising.

"We're confident there will be a document and we'll get to Annapolis in good shape on that," but bargaining may well continue behind the scenes during the session Tuesday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in an interview.

The Bush administration, which has largely taken a hands-off approach to Mideast peacemaking until now, says the goal is to set up an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. Israeli and Palestinian leaders have said they want to do that by the time Bush leaves office in January 2009.

"This is not a negotiation session, it is to launch negotiations," said Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley.

The conference is meant to draw Arab and other outside backing for what will be difficult negotiations. The idea is also to let Arab states have a say alongside Bush, making it more difficult for them to complain that Washington is not listening to advice from those closest to the conflict.

Syria gave Washington a partial victory Sunday by agreeing to send a lower-level envoy to the session. Syria wants to raise the question of the Golan Heights, strategic territory Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war. As 16 Arab nations and the Arab League prepared to sit down with Israel for the first time in more than a decade, Israel's ambassador to Washington said what Arab leaders say and do after the conference can ease the bitterness in the Middle East.

CONFERENCE ISSUES

PALESTINIAN STATE BORDERS

•Palestinians want complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.

•Israel wants 1949 cease-fire line changed to include main West Bank settlements.

•Possible solution: Modification of the cease-fire line and compensation by giving Palestinians some Israeli territory.

JERUSALEM

•Palestinians want east Jerusalem, including the Old City, as capital of their state.

•Israel has annexed east Jerusalem and offers control of some Arab neighborhoods.

•Possible solution: Sharing control of the city.

PALESTINIAN REFUGEES

•Palestinians demand the right of return for refugees and descendants of 1948-49 war.

•Israel believes refugees must be resettled in the new Palestinian state or where they now reside.

•Possible solution: Compensation for most, while allowing a token number to live in Israel.

WEST BANK

•Palestinians demand all Jewish West Bank settlements to be dismantled.

•Israel wants to keep main settlement blocs under its sovereignty.

•Possible solution: Israel gets its main West Bank settlements, Palestinians get part of Israeli land.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT