Israeli and Syrian peace negotiations remained at an impasse this week, after U.S. Middle East peace envoy Dennis Ross failed to extract an agreement from President Hafez Assad to resume talks between senior military officers.
After six hours of talks in Damascus, Ross returned to Israel over the weekend, where he briefed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on his discussions.
The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported that Assad refused to resume the talks, and that he stood fast on his demand for equal security arrangements to be part of any peace agreement between the two nations.
Israel and Syria have been divided over Damascus’ demand for symmetrical security arrangements, such as the size of demilitarized zones on either side of the border, and troop scaledowns.
Leaving the Prime minister’s residence after talks Saturday, Ross told reporters, “We have to prepare the ground well for such a meeting [between military officers] to be productive, and there is still a lot to do.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Itamar Rabinovich, said, “There has been some Incremental progress, and we will continue.”
Rabinovich and his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem, recently resumed talks in Washington at the ambassadorial level. Assad had abruptly cut off military and diplomatic talks in December.
U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher convinced Assad to resume the ambassadorial talks during his shuttle mission to the region last month.
Ross flew to Cairo on Sunday to brief Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his latest peace shuttle.
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