Mubarak Delivers Message from Assad
CBNNews.com
December 27, 2007
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - At Wednesday's meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hand-delivered a note to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Allegedly from Syrian President Bashar Assad, the note responded to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remarks following a meeting Tuesday with U.S. Republican Senator Arlen Specter.
Olmert asked the senator to "tell Assad I await an answer from him regarding the dynamic messages I have conveyed to him about negotiations." Tell him "a lot has changed in relations between Israel and Syria," Olmert reportedly told Specter.
On Thursday morning, Israel radio quoted Damascus' response to Olmert's message, which appeared in an article in Asharq Alawsat: "Syria does not tend to respond to leaks of this kind."
Meanwhile, in an interview on Israeli television the day before, Senator Specter suggested that Israel and Syria cease exchanging clandestine messages through third parties and enter direct negotiations.
According to the senator, U.S. President George Bush would support Israeli-Syrian dialogue.
While Olmert has indicated his willingness to comply with Syrian demands to cede the Golan Heights as the starting point of peace negotiations with Syria, the chance that the Israeli public will back him are slim.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War after years of enduring Syrian sniper fire on residents of kibbutzim (agricultural communities) in the Hula Valley below. In the early 1980s, after developing the area, Israel annexed the Golan Heights.
Sources: The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz
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