Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday urged Israel to show proof of its desire and readiness for peace, casting doubt over its willingness to make peace with Syria.
"The Israelis have to offer proof and express in deeds that they are ready for peace because they are the party who occupy our lands and wage aggressions against our people," Assad said in a speech to a meeting of the Arab Transitional Parliament.
Indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel have been suspended for two months due to the internal politics in Israel after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided to resign over his corruption scandal.
"We still see the slogan of peace being used as one of the tactics of Israel's internal game and a main part of its foreign policy maneuvers which conceal a lot," Assad was cited by the official SANA news agency as saying.
"Peace hasn't been the main matter for the Israelis. They are mainly concerned with security in the narrow meaning which can only be established, according to their vision, at the expense of the Arabs' security and rights," added the president.
"We are keen on establishing a just and comprehensive peace based on our firm and unnegotiable rights under no conditions, particularly the return to the June 4th line 1967," he said.
Assad claimed that "Israel's rejection of the requirements of peace on the Syrian track shows that peace for Israel is only a tactic not a strategy."
Four rounds of Turkey-brokered negotiations between the two neighbors have been carried out since the three sides confirmed in mid-May the renewal of the peace process.
Yet a fifth round, originally planned in early September, has been on hold due to Israel's political turmoil surrounding Olmert's resignation.
Olmert, who will remain in power as caretaker prime minister until a successor is chosen in February parliamentary elections, has voiced willingness to renew the Turkish-mediated talks.
Direct peace negotiations between Israel and Syria, which are still technically at war, foundered in 2000 over the fate of the strategic Golan Heights, which Israel seized in 1967 and annexed in 1981 without international recognition.
Source:Xinhua
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