Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dismissed the report of secret talks with the Syrians published yesterday in Haaretz. Speaking to journalists on a tour of Israel Defense Forces roadblocks in the West Bank yesterday, Olmert said "there wasn't even a fable."

He added that he knew nothing of the talks "and nobody in the government knew. This is a private initiative of an individual talking with himself and from what I read, his interlocutor was some kind of strange person from the United States. This is not serious, undignified, and it would not be fitting for me to say more than I already have."

The Prime Minister's Office said that a check following the report revealed that no official in the ministry knew about the talks.

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However a government spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the contacts, confirmed that officials were aware of the talks, though they were not sanctioned by the government.

The Foreign Ministry did not respond to the report, but Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said during a visit to South Korea that "there are no official talks of any kind with Syria."

Syria yesterday denied conducting secret talks with Israel. The spokeswoman for the Syrian Foreign Ministry in Damascus, Bushra Kanafani, was quoted on the Al-Jazeera Web site as saying that the story was "an invention, a trial balloon, part of Israel's well-known style." The official Syrian news agency, SANA, quoted a source from the Syrian Foreign Ministry as saying "the information has no basis in fact."

Various Syrian spokespeople said there is no secret channel of communication with the Israelis. Among them was Syrian parliamentarian Muhammed Habash, who said in interviews with Arab news outlets that his country is not ready to conduct secret negotiations with Israel.

The Syrian spokespersons also discussed the clause in the understandings that ostensibly indicates Syrian agreement to stop supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Syrian parliament, Numayir Ranem, said on Lebanese television that any peace agreement "would not come at the expense of others," that is, Syria's allies.

Ex-FM read about talks in Haaretz

Silvan Shalom, Israel's foreign minister for much of the negotiating period, said he learned of the talks in Tuesday's newspaper. Dov Weisglass, a top aide to Sharon, told Army Radio that Sharon neither authorized nor was aware of the reported talks.

A woman who answered Liel's home phone on Tuesday said Liel would have no comment except to say that he hadn't represented anyone beside himself.

Rabinovich plays down significance

Itamar Rabinovich, Israel's former chief negotiator with Syria, played down the significance of Tuesday's report.

"What we have here is yet another attempt to create an Israeli-Syrian channel. Given the official positions of Syria itself, Israel and the United States, I am doubtful that this is going to lead anywhere," he said. "By definition [such talks] have to remain informal and secret. The moment that a secret like that is out, the channel is dead, it is over."

Mahdi Dahkhallah, a former Syrian information minister who still has close ties to the government, dismissed the report as an attempt by Israel to improve its image after rebuffing peace overtures from Damascus.

"Syria has always declared that it does not believe in secret contacts, and has nothing to hide under the table," Dahkhallah said in Damascus.

The text of the agreed-upon document was not signed. The document was prepared in August 2005 and was updated during meetings in Europe, the last of which took place during last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah.