Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al- Muallem said on Wednesday that his country was ready for peace talks with arch-foe Israel according to the Arab peace initiative reactivated at the Arab summit in Saudi capital Riyadh last week.

Muallem made the remarks at a press conference after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who headed a congressional delegation, wrapped up her two-day official visit here.

"They (the delegation) said that (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert is ready for peace with Syria. We replied that Syria is ready for peace according to the Arab initiative," he said.

The initiative, adopted at the 2002 Arab summit in Beirut, calls for Israel's pullout from Arab land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, including Syria's Golan Heights, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in return for the normalization of ties with Arab.

Pelosi, the highest-level U.S. politician to visit Damascus in years, told reporters after meeting Syrian President Bashar al- Assad that she had convey an Israeli message for peace talks with Syria and that she received assurances from Assad that Syria was ready to engage in peace talks with Israel.

Muallem hailed the "historic" visit by Pelosi, saying that Syria agreed to keep up contacts with the U.S. Congress.

"If the U.S. administration wants to join this dialogue we will be satisfied," he added.

Pelosi's trip here met strong criticism from the White House which rebuked it as undermining the U.S. efforts to isolate Syria.

Washington withdrew its ambassador to Damascus for Syria's alleged role in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005 and had since refused high-level contacts with Damascus.

Peace talks between Syria and the Jewish state foundered in 2000 largely over the fate of the strategic Golan plateau, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Source: Xinhua