Syria hopes for a Middle East peace process to be launched next year and urged Israel to reopen negotiations on the Golan Heights, Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said on Monday.

"We hope to have in 2007 a peace process to settle the issue," Moualem said after meeting Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in the Syrian capital.

Moallem said that despite predictions of another Middle East war, Syria welcomed a debate going on in Israel about whether to resume negotiations with Damascus over the Golan Heights.

	Advertisement

"We appreciate the Israeli voices who call for the resumption of the peace process with Syria," Moallem, urging Israel to respond to these calls and resume talks.

When Israel responds, "it will find Syria ready to resume peace negotiations," the foreign minister said during a press conference in Damascus.

Talks between Israel and Syria over the Golan Heights, a mountainous plateau that Israel captured in 1967 Six Day War, collapsed in 2000 after Syria insisted on regaining control of all the strategic piece of land.

"If the Israelis are thinking of launching a war next year this is not the way. They need to understand that using force does not solve issues," Moualem said without elaborating.

Syria has endorsed calls by countries such as Russia for an international Middle East conference, similar to the 1991 Madrid conference which led to direct talks between Syria and Israel.

European nations have begun re-establishing high-level contacts with Syria since the recent war in Lebanon, which was sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israel Defense Forces soldiers in July.

Officials from Britain, Spain, Italy and Germany have had contacts with the Syrian side. An adviser for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and senior intelligence officers from London met Syrian officials last week.

Stoere, who also met Syrian President Bashar Assad, said Damascus, which hosts high-level Hamas officials and backs the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah, was a key player.

"Syria is a neighbor to many of the most urgent issues that need to be solved in the region," Stoere said.

Stoere said Norway, which orchestrated secret talks that led to the 1993 Oslo accords on interim arrangements for Palestinian self-rule, was keen to maintain a dialogue with Syria.

His talks with Assad focused on violence in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and efforts to arrange a prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel, a diplomat familiar with the talks said.

Diplomats in Damascus said Syria had shown it would respond positively to European overtures but had not yet outlined practical steps it would be willing to take to help arrange a prisoner exchange or stop the alleged movement to Iraq of arms which are then used against U.S.-led occupation forces.