In an indirect reference on Tuesday to the Israeli air incursion over Syria on September 6, President Shimon Peres said that tensions between Syria and Israel have subsided and that Israel is ready for direct peace negotiations with Syria. (For more, click here to watch Haaretz.com TV)
"I do believe the nervousness in the relationship between Syria and ourselves is over," Peres told foreign journalists. "Why go back to rumors and speculation when we say clearly we are ready to negotiate directly with the Syrians for peace."
Peres made the comments at an event at the President's Residence marking the 50th anniversary of Israel's Foreign Press Association.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, another indication that tensions with Syria have quieted somewhat is the fact that the Israel Defense Forces have announced that a round of officer appointments, suspended due to the rise in tensions, would resume. The appointments were halted about a month before the September 6 incident, due to fears of a possible war with Syria during the summer.
On Tuesday, Brigadier General Imad Fares was appointed commander of the Galilee division (division 91). He is replacing Brigadier General Yossi Becher, who will return to his previous position of chief infantry and paratrooper officer. Becher was originally named commander of division 91 when Brigadier General Gal Hirsch quit the IDF following criticism of his performance during the Second Lebanon War. Becher's appointment was a temporary one, and the position is now being manned permanently.
By the end of October, Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Moshe Kaplinsky will also step down. Kaplinsky made a surprise announcement in August that he would remain in his position longer than anticipated, presumably because of fears that a war would break out. Replacing Kaplinsky will be Major General Dan Harel.
Despite the resumption of the appointments, the tensions have not completely dissipated. The IDF is still under high alert in the Golan Heights. Military sources have said that the danger of imminent war with Syria has lessened, but there is a reasonable chance that Syria will choose to respond in some alternate way to the September 6 incident. One of the possibilities raising fears among Israel's defense establishment is that Syria may encourage terrorist groups to carry out attacks against Israeli targets in Israel and abroad.
In a related development, Syria and North Korea denied on Tuesday claims that they are cooperating on a Syrian nuclear program. Both accused U.S. officials of spreading the accusations for political reasons - either to back Israel or to block progress on a deal between Washington and Pyongyang.
The two countries spoke out amid widespread speculation over the Israel Air Force operation in Syria two weeks ago, in which U.S. officials have said Israeli warplanes struck a target.
Details of the raid remain unclear, with Israel remaining silent. Syria has said no airstrike took place and that warplanes violated its airspace and dropped munitions to lighten their load as they fled Syrian air defenses.
American and Israeli sources say the Israeli government informed the Bush administration of the planned raid in Syria shortly before the attack, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
It remains unclear whether the Americans expressed support for the raid or were opposed to it. Nor is it known whether U.S. intelligence agencies shared the Israeli assessments regarding the facility targeted. According to the newspaper report, some officials questioned Syria's financial and scientific ability to initiate a nuclear program.
Last week, a senior U.S. non-proliferation official said Syria was believed to be approaching secret suppliers for nuclear technology and that North Korean personnel were in the country, raising theories that the Israelis were targeting a nuclear installation.
A Syrian Cabinet minister ridiculed the speculation on Tuesday. "All this rubbish is not true. I don't know how their imagination has reached such creativity," Bouthaina Shaaban said of the reports of Syrian-North Korean nuclear cooperation.
She said the reports - including ones of a recent North Korean shipment to Syria - were all "fabricated stories which have no value and truth."
"Regretfully, the international press is busy justifying an aggression on a sovereign state and the world should be busy condemning it instead of inventing reasons and aims of this aggression," Shaaban told Lebanon's Hezbollah television station Al-Manar.
North Korea on Tuesday also strongly denied it secretly helped Syria develop a nuclear program, claiming the charge was fabricated by U.S. hardliners to block progress in North Korea's relations with the U.S.
The North Korean foreign ministry said the suspicions "are nothing but a clumsy plot fabricated again by dishonest forces who do not want to see progress in the six-party talks and in the (North Korea)-U.S. relations."
The Syrian state-run newspaper Tishrin said in an editorial on Tuesday that the U.S. was fomenting the accusations to excuse Israel's incursion. It compared them to American claims in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq that then-leader Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction.
The accusations against Syria recall those false claims that the Americans and the British circulated about Iraq's nuclear programs, the paper, which reflects Syrian government thinking, said in a front-page editorial.
It said Washington's blatant bias toward Israel has hurt - and continues to hurt - the image the U.S. and its role of justice, fairness and the preservation of international peace
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
