Syria reportedly is pushing to renew peace talks with Israel. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported Thursday that Syrian President Bashar Assad, eager to deflect international suspicion over his regime’s involvement in the assassination in February of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, wants to renew talks with Israel. According to the report, Assad has been lobbying Arab leaders at an Islamic summit in Mecca to help bring his overture to Jerusalem. Israel is reluctant to enter new negotiations as long as Syria insists, as a precondition, that Israel give up the Golan Heights. “In my opinion, Israel should not surrender the Golan Heights,” the Guardian quoted Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as saying last week. Talks stalled in 2000 when Israel reportedly agreed to give up the Golan, which it conquered from Syria in 1967, but Syria demanded additional territory it had conquered from Israel in 1948 and then lost in 1967.
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