Word: assad
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...Clinton, and their heartfelt words bespoke an authentic friendship and respect. That heady afternoon built expectations of more good news; Israel especially hoped the President could find a way to speed up its glacial negotiations over the Golan Heights. But Clinton immediately ran up against Syria's President Hafez Assad...
Before going to Damascus to meet Assad, Clinton warned there would be no "dramatic breakthrough," explaining carefully that he hoped only to give the stalled negotiations a push forward. After his four hours of talks, Clinton claimed he had done that -- at least in private. "We've made some progress today," he said, "the details of which I'm not at liberty to discuss." Though evidence of such progress was scant, Rabin politely agreed there was some. Syrians and Israelis alike told Clinton they wanted peace and would work to achieve it. That was slightly promising and probably about...
...public statement condemning the recent wave of terror attacks on Israel. When Arafat was later asked whether he backed peace or the extremists of Hamas, he duly said, "My choice is the peace, the peace of the brave." Clinton also asked Mubarak about the best approaches to use with Assad, and Mubarak later phoned Damascus to lay the groundwork for Clinton's arrival. "It's not just intelligence Mubarak provides," said a U.S. official. "It's insight...
...treaty ceremony in the desert Wednesday, Clinton stopped briefly in Amman, where he told the Jordanian parliament, "You have sent a signal to the entire Arab world that peace is unstoppable." A test of that prediction came the next day in Damascus. Clinton was taking a chance on Assad, rewarding him up front with a telegenic official visit by a U.S. President, even though Syria is still listed by the State Department as a sponsor of terrorism. For his part, Clinton wanted to hear Assad offer public assurances that he opposes the kind of terror Hamas has been inflicting...
Senior members of the U.S. delegation even thought they had figured out how to elicit such statements. They invited onto the press plane an Israeli journalist who, at the news conference scheduled to be held in Assad's marble palace, could be expected to ask a leading question. The ploy backfired. When the journalist asked Assad whether he might ease Israeli fears by opening direct talks or visiting the country, Assad coldly turned aside the chance to offer reassurance, saying instead that one country's security concerns were no excuse for holding on to another country's territory...