- Title: JERUSALEM: Israel's cabinet ministers convey contradicting messages on Syria
- Date: 27th April 2009
- Summary: JERUSALEM (APRIL 26, 2009) (REUTERS) ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU ARRIVING AT CABINET MEETING SECURITY GUARDS OUTSIDE OF MEETING ROOM NETANYAHU WALKING DOWN AISLE TOWARDS MEETING MINISTER ARRIVING ISRAELI DEFENCE MINISTER EHUD BARAK ARRIVING (SOUNDBITE) (English) ISRAELI DEFENCE MINISTER EHUD BARAK SAYING: "An agreement with Syria is a highly important inter
- Embargoed: 12th May 2009 13:00
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- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVA3OVQQPG16XEONOHTGO4PY7NTG
- Story Text: Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday (April 26) said talks with Syria are of high interest to Israel, after Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had conveyed a different message in an interview on Israel's radio.
"An agreement with Syria is a highly important interest to the state of Israel assuming of course that our vital interests are met within this agreement. I think that the negotiations with Syria should be on the government's agenda all the time, permanently," said Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, ahead of the government's weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
Lieberman however told Israeli radio earlier on Sunday that Israel's new government would talk peace with Syria if it dropped preconditions such as an Israeli commitment to return the Golan Heights.
Lieberman, an ultranationalist coalition partner to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the less than month-old government was still formulating foreign policy but made clear he saw Syria's bedrock demand for the Golan as up for debate.
This is not the view from Damascus, which says Israel, which annexed the Golan in a move not recognised abroad, is legally required to return it along with other occupied Arab land.
Keen to find a diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East and perhaps wary of a deadlocked Palestinian track, the Obama administration has spoken encouragingly about the prospect of Israeli-Syrian rapprochement.
Netanyahu's centrist predecessor, Ehud Olmert, held indirect talks with Syria. Olmert had his own precondition for fuller engagement with Syria -- that it distance itself from Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas guerrillas.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cautioned Israel's right-wing government on Thursday that it risked losing Arab support for fighting any threats from Iran if it shuns Palestinian peace talks.
Signalling U.S. impatience with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reticence over peace talks, Clinton said Arab nations had made clear to her that Israel must be committed to the Palestinian peace process if it wants help countering Iran.
Barak said that Israeli will not advise the United States on how to proceed in regards to Iran.
"We are in no position to tell the United States whether to open engagement or dialogue with the Iranians or not, but we insist that such an engagement should be short, limited in time, being one under a certain kind of set, soft sanctions with the readiness to take much more powerful sanctions under chapter 7 of the charter of the UN."
Netanyahu is due to discuss strategy with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington next month. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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