President Bashar al Assad said after meeting Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in the Syrian capital that "Syria was ready to cooperate with Turkey in any effort that brings security and stability to the region."
"The meeting focused on ways to activate a just and comprehensive peace and the president praised Turkey for the efforts in this regard," the state news agency said.
Syrian officials said that the meeting focused on attempts by Turkey to help Syria and Israel relaunch negotiations that collapsed in 2000 over the scope of a proposed Israeli withdrawal from the Golan heights, a water-rich plateau overlooking Damascus.
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Earlier Saturday, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed that his country is mediating between Syria and Israel in an effort to secure peace.
"There was a request from Syria and Israel for this kind of an effort and Turkey will do its best in this regard," said Erdogan, speaking in Ankara upon his return from a trip to Damascus, where he attended a Turkish-Syrian business meeting and held talks with President Bashar Assad.
Erdogan stated that Turkey will try to restart low-level negotiations between the sides with the aim of eventually getting the countries' leaders together. "This effort will start among the lower level (officials) and if they are successful, God willing, they will end with a higher level meeting," the Turkish prime minister added.
Erdogan's original purpose for his trip to Damascus was to open a Syrian-Turkish business forum. But his visit gained added significance with
Assad's announcement that he received an Israeli offer of a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for a peace treaty.
Assad has said that Erdogan passed on the message that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is ready to return the Golan and that he's looking to discuss the details with Erdogan. The two were to meet later in the day.
Turkey has close ties with both Israel and Syria as well as with the United States.
Assad also said in an interview with the Qatari newspaper al-Watan published Thursday that Turkish mediation over the past year could lay the groundwork for direct talks with Israel.
The recent developments suggested some progress in back-channel contacts
between the longtime enemies, despite heightened tensions between them over the turmoil in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and over a September airstrike by Israel against a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria.
Israel and Syria's last round of direct talks broke down in 2000 over the
details of Israel's proposed withdrawal from the Golan, which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War. Israel wanted to keep a small coastal strip around the Sea of Galilee to ensure its control of the lake's vital water supplies, a demand Syria rejected.
Olmert said earlier in April that he sent messages to Damascus on peace
prospects but did not disclose the contents. The prime minister's spokesman, Mark Regev, declined to comment on the reports but said Israel is genuinely interested in restarting talks with Syria.
Olmert has never committed himself publicly to a return of the Golan, saying only he is willing to resume peace negotiations with Syria if it drops its support for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry official said this week that Syrian reports do not represent the full picture of Olmert's position because they don't address, for instance, the extent of the Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, the prime minister's demands and Syria's response.
In his newspaper interview, Assad did not disclose details. He said his country may hold future direct talks with Israel, but not until a new U.S. administration that can broker such negotiations takes office.
Syria's relations with the Bush administration, which leaves office in January 2009, have been poor in the last three years because of disputes over policy in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinians.
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