Senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office were updated on the meetings with Syrian government representatives on a peace agreement with Israel and a settlement in the Golan, according to Dr. Alon Liel, former director of the Foreign Ministry.

Liel held unofficial talks with Syrian officials and proxies, and made these comments on Thursday at a Netanya Academic College conference, responding to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's sarcastic comment that Liel was "holding talks with himself."

Haaretz reported on the unofficial talks and understandings reached during eight separate meetings in Switzerland, but Thursday was the first time Liel related to the matter in public.

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He said he had informed senior officials at the Prime Minister's Office of the Syrian wishes to hold talks. He also hinted that he had updated officials at the Foreign Ministry, but denied having talked with anyone at the Defense Ministry.

"I talked with the appropriate persons prior to every meeting," he said. "I did not embark on any meeting without informing them and I gave an update both in writing and verbally immediately upon my return. I spoke with senior officials, not one, not two and not five."

Liel would not say who his hosts were, but said he believed they used their own diplomatic contacts to check whether the messages coming out of the talks were reaching the Syrian government.

Liel said that during the second Lebanon war, Syria had proposed holding a secret emergency meeting with Israeli officials in Europe.

He said he believed his counterpart, Syrian-American businessman Ibrahim Suleiman, also had channels to the Syrian government.

"Our testimony is that it is very clear to us that Assad wants to talk," Liel said, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

On Tuesday, Olmert dismissed knowledge of the talks. "I knew of nothing. No one in the government was involved in this matter. It was a private initiative on the part of an individual who spoke with himself," Olmert told reporters. "From what I read, his interlocutor was an eccentric from the United States, someone not serious or dignified."

Syrian officials said Tuesday that reports of an agreement were "baseless."

Referring to the Syrian request for talks during the war, Liel said that "the Syrian party suggested that since there is a war and an emergency situation, let's have a very quick track-one, high-level meeting on the level of deputy ministers ... with an American in the room."

Liel said he told Israeli government officials about the offer, and pleaded with them to accept. "And the answer was 'no, no we don't want to meet them,'" he said.

Liel said he believes the Israeli government is reluctant to resume peace talks with Syria because the idea of giving up the Golan is unpopular in Israel and because it would counter Washington's policy of trying to isolate Syria.

He said he made it very clear at the beginning of each meeting that he did not represent the Israeli government, but that he routinely updated Israeli officials.

Liel and Suleiman were brought together by Geoffrey Aronson, head of the Foundation for Middle East Peace in Washington. Eight meetings were held, Liel said, including several reportedly under the auspices of the Swiss

Aronson said Thursday that the media in Israel is focused on who knew of the talks and who did not, while the content of the understandings reached is much more important.

He added that the time is ripe for a resumption of peace talks, though he acknowledged that Syria could just be feigning interest in resuming talks in order to get into Washington's good graces. "There is a reasonable basis to assume that well-intentioned official representatives have something to talk about when they sit down," he said.

In June, the participants wrote a two-page "non-paper" to sum up their talks, Liel said. The centerpiece was a proposal to turn part of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed in 1981, into a "peace park." Syria would be the sovereign in all of the Golan, but Israelis could visit the park freely, without visas.

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