After the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia flatly rejected US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton request that his country make goodwill gestures toward Israel, Bashar Assad, president Syria, another Arab powerhouse,
repeated his refusal to resume negotiations with Israel unless the country a-priori commits to ceding the Golan Heights.
In an interview published Saturday in the Syrian military magazine celebrating the 64th anniversary of the military, Assad said "peace and occupation are opposites that can never meet." He repeated the Syrian position that "returning all occupied territories to the 4th of June [1967, prior to the Six Day War] borders is not open for negotiation or discussion."
He insisted that Syria wanted "a fair peace, but there is a great difference between an honest invitation to lay the foundations for peace according to the legitimate international resolutions and accepting Israel’s demands," which, he said, "contradict the principles of peace."
"The Syrian Golan will yet return to Arab hands," Assad promised. Syria lost the strategic plateau in the 1967 Six Day War and almost retook it in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but was eventually defeated by the IDF which conquered the heights and maintains a presence there ever since.
The interview with Assad was published on the day when American sanctions against the country were renewed by a year. The US decision to extend sanctions comes despite recent efforts of the administration to thaw relations with Damascus, which were frozen by the George W. BushHYPERLINK \l "" administration.