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Bashar willing to do deal with Israel
Israel and the Middle East: special report
The new Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, is keen to reach an accord with Israel and could resume the stalled Middle East peace talks later this year, according to an informed Syrian source.Bashar, who is likely to succeed his father Hafez al-Assad as president next month, is prepared to be flexible over the complex issues that have dogged talks over the future of the disputed Golan Heights.
The Syrian plateau, which overlooks northern Israel, has been occupied almost continually by Israel since the 1967 Six Days War.
Western diplomats discount rumours that talks will resume this year, partly because of the domestic problems faced by the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, and partly because of the US elections.
The Damascus regime is excessively secretive but the Syrian source, who has proved reliable in past, said he believed Bashar could seek "a resumption of talks to send a positive message".
The US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, who attended Assad's funeral on Tuesday, is scheduled to return to Damascus next week.
Bashar has made no public statement since his father's death but during the funeral he told the French president, Jacques Chirac that he wanted a resolution of the dispute that has dogged the Middle East for more than 30 years.
The Golan Heights is a confusion of UN observation posts, checkpoints and minefields. The Syrian side is desert-like and almost empty, whereas the Israeli is lush with fruit orchards, grape vines and tomatoes.
According to the Syrian ministry of information, about 500,000 Syrians fled after the Israeli advance in 1967 and are still living in camps dotted round the country, ready to return if a settlement is reached.
The main town of the Golan, Quneitra - divided between the Syrians and the Israelis - is dead. Once inhabited by 50,000 people, it was flattened by the Israelis with dynamite and bulldozers before they handed in back in 1974, an act of vandalism that was condemned by the UN. The Syrians have left the town in its shattered state, a shrine to their grievance against Israel.
Surprisingly, half-a-dozen families live amid the rubble and eucalyptus trees of this ghost town. Nahed Tannous, 48, who has seven children, said she had fled the Golan village of Banyas in 1967, which remained under Israeli occupation. After a stay in Damascus, she had gone to live in Quneitra. Her husband worked at the UN observation post.
If there was a settlement, she said, they would reclaim their land at Banyas. "Of course, we would return." Did she hate the Israelis? "Of course, they took our land."
The border near the village of Majdal Shams is known as the Shouting Valley. On Fridays, Syrians gather with megaphones to yell across the heavily mined valley to relatives on the Israeli side.
In the Syrian village of Hadar, on the Golan, Wassim Tawil, a farmer, said half his family were on the Israeli side. He said that travel from the Israeli side was possible, though expensive.
He admitted that the villages on the Israeli side were relatively prosperous, but added that "their freedom is limited". He predicted: "The land is going to be returned soon."
That requires diplomacy. The final sticking point in the talks between Israel, Syria and the US in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, earlier this year concerned a strip of land that would give Syria access to the Sea of Galilee - referred to by the Syrians as Lake Tiberias - which formed the 1967 border.
The Syrian source said: "There are two main issues. One is territory and the other is water. The land is a non-negotiable issue. Bashar, like his father, will keep demanding that we have access to the lake but he will make a compromise: he will not demand the right to draw water from the lake. Syria will also be flexible about security on the Golan Heights."
The Israelis want to ensure security by having a proper monitoring system to prevent a surprise attack by the Syrians. The source added: "They are very close to a settlement. It is not a question of technical difficulties but politics. If Bashar makes a decision to have a deal, Syria will sign tomorrow."