After Assad talks, Abbas says PA must coordinate with Syria

Speaking after meeting Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Monday, PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas called for the Palestinians and Syria to coordinate their stance in any peace talks, saying that it would prevent Israel from playing one side off against the other during negotiations.

"We spoke a while ago with President Bashar about coordination with Syria and we said we start with consultations and then we move to the stage of coordination," Abbas told reporters after the talks.

"The Palestinian-Israeli situation and the Syrian-Israeli situation require a form of coordination and consultation so that... the Israelis do not exploit our respective positions. Therefore we want to walk side by side," Abbas said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara said there could be no immediate coordination but that Syria and the Palestinians had agreed on forms of cooperation.

"Let's be realistic, consultations and exchange of views is the first stage that is followed by coordination, if we use certain agreed mechanisms well, so that both sides benefit from them," al-Shara said.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Sha'ath said relations between Damascus and the PLO had improved "one hundred percent."

"In the end we are all seeking a comprehensive solution, not a partial one [for the Arab-Israeli conflict]," said Shaath, who arrived in Damascus earlier Monday with Abbas, acting PA chairman Rouhi Fattouh and Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.

Abbas said he had briefed Assad on the post-Arafat situation and the challenges the Palestinian leadership was facing to establish security and organize legislative and presidential elections.

"We have put all the issues of concern to us on the table... What we are asked [by Syria] and what we are asking Syria for is that we are in the picture and that they are in the picture of what is going on," he said.

The images from Syria showing the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization talking with Assad are historic, and possibly signal the change underway in the Middle East since the death of Yasser Arafat last month.

The invitation of the Palestinian leadership to Syria also testifies to a shift in relations between Damascus and Ramallah, after years of tension.

Bashar Assad's arrival in Cairo to participate in Arafat's funeral last month, kept secret till the last moment, symbolized the change. Syrian authorities had not published a mourning announcement until late on the day of Arafat's death.

More than anything else, Syria's aversion to the man was reflected in the statement made in 1999 by Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas, calling Arafat "the son of 60,000 prostitutes."

Arafat was not a welcome guest in Damascus, where he last visited in 2000, after a 17-year absence, for the funeral of the current president's father, Hafez Assad. But since then, PA sources say, "the historical residues and the personal animosity have disappeared." Al-Shara called twice over the past 18 months, on behalf of Bashar Assad, to ask about Arafat's health.

The most recent crisis between the sides broke out in 1993, when Arafat decided to sign the Oslo agreements and create the Palestinian Authority. The Syrians were outraged. A PA source said Sunday that Hafez Assad was personally affronted over being left in the dark, while Syria was left behind.

The Syrians refused to recognize the PA, and Arafat continued to be referred to as "chairman of the PLO" on the radio. Arafat's associates who returned with him to the territories also fell out of favor. Mahmoud Abbas last visited Damascus in 2001, after more than a decade's absence.

Abbas and Qureia were also to meet Monday with several leaders of the Palestinian opposition in Damascus - including Khaled Mashal, head of Hamas' political department; Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, secretary of Islamic Jihad; George Habash, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and Naif Hawatmeh, head of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine - to discuss a possible joint course of action for the Palestinian faction and whether a second hudna (cease-fire) can be expected after the elections in the PA.

	Syrian FM Farouk al-Shara and Mahmoud Abbas speaking to reporters at a press conference in Damascus on Monday. (AP)