Assad Proposed To Resume Peace Talks With Israel In Letter To Obama In 2010 - Reports

Umer Jamshaid Published September 04, 2018 | 03:32 PM

Syrian President Bashar Assad sent a secret letter to US President Barack Obama in 2010 with a proposal to resume peace talks with Israel, media reported Tuesday, citing excerpts from a new memoir by former US Secretary of State John Kerry.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th September, 2018) Syrian President Bashar Assad sent a secret letter to US President Barack Obama in 2010 with a proposal to resume peace talks with Israel, media reported Tuesday, citing excerpts from a new memoir by former US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Israeli-Syrian relations have long been strained, particularly over the disputed Golan Heights. Israel occupied the region after the 1967 Six-Day War with Syria and other Arab states and annexed the territory in 1981. The international community has not recognized the annexation.

Kerry recalls in his book, titled "Every Day Is Extra" and cited by the Haartez newspaper, that in 2009, while chairing the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he visited Damascus as part of a middle East tour and held talks with Assad, who seemed to have been "interested in some sort of deal with Israel."

"Assad asked me what it would take to enter into serious peace negotiations, in the hope of securing return of the Golan Heights, which Syria had lost to Israel in 1967.

I told him that if he were serious, he should make a private proposal. He asked what it would look like. I shared my thoughts. He instructed his top aide to draft a letter from Assad to President Obama," Kerry said.

According to the former diplomat, the following day, he traveled to Israel for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and shared this information with him.

"He [Netanyahu] was surprised that Assad was willing to go that far, significantly further than he'd been willing to go [previously]," Kerry said.

According to Haaretz, prior to the start of civil war in Syria in 2011, Damascus and Tel Aviv were engaged in negotiations under US mediation. However, the two parties failed to reach an agreement.