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DAMASCUS: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday a list of proposals has been sent to Israel via Turkish mediators aimed at laying the groundwork for direct peace talks between the two foes.
"We are awaiting Israel's response to six points that we have submitted through Turkey," Assad said at a four-way summit in Damascus with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
"Our response would be positive, paving the way for direct talks after a new US administration that believes in the peace process takes office," he said.
Israel and Syria, which have technically been at war for 60 years, launched indirect negotiations brokered by Turkey in May, eight years after talks were frozen over the fate of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
A senior Israeli official said the government was trying to set a new date for a fifth round after a session planned for Sunday was called off to sort out legal issues over the mandate of negotiator Yoram Turbowitz following his resignation as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's chief of staff.
Erdogan said on Thursday the new round of indirect talks will be in two weeks.
"The process is continuing in a positive manner and the fifth round of talks will be held on September 18-19," he said in remarks from Damascus broadcast on Turkish television.
Syria has said that ultimately only Washington has the clout to sponsor direct talks, although it has been keen to win greater international support for the process.
"We are also waiting for the Israeli election to be assured that a new prime minister would be on the same track as Olmert and be ready to completely withdraw from the occupied land in order to achieve peace," Assad said.
Olmert in July announced he would resign as premier after a leadership election in his centrist Kadima party in mid-September.
Assad also said Lebanese President Michel Sleiman had agreed to join future direct talks with Israel, adding, "We don't want just a peace agreement. We want peace."
Sarkozy, who ended a landmark visit to Syria on Thursday, hailed Turkish mediation and said France was set to give any help required for direct peace negotiations.
"I told Assad that if the Israelis accept the principles and the direct negotiations begin, France is ready to help diplomatically, politically, economically and militarily," he told the summit.
The key sticking point is the Golan, the strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 war with Arab states and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.
Sarkozy, whose country holds the revolving EU presidency, said on Wednesday he hoped France and the EU could rank alongside the United States as peacemakers in the Middle East.
However, the prospect of a bigger EU role has drawn little enthusiasm from Israel, which insisted there had to be a serious change in Syrian policy if the process was to make progress.
Despite the launch of the negotiations, Israel last month staged war games on the Golan, and it continues to accuse Damascus of backing what it terms "terrorist" groups such as the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Lebanon's Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia, also supported by Iran.
At the summit, Sarkozy warned Tehran that its determination to press on with its controversial nuclear drive risked an Israeli strike that would be a "catastrophe".
Sarkozy is the first Western head of state to visit Syria since the murder of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri in a 2005 bombing in Beirut that was widely blamed on Damascus.
His predecessor Jacques Chirac broke off all high-level contact with Syria over the assassination of Hariri, a personal friend.
Assad returned to the international fold with a visit to Paris in July.
- AFP/yt
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