Word: golan
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...down together. Yet inside Syria, Assad, 69, ailing with heart disease, diabetes and prostate problems, appears increasingly anxious to ensure Bashar's position and with it the Assad legacy. And to make that happen, Assad seems in more of a hurry to make a deal to regain the Golan Heights from Israel than he was in 1996, when four-plus years of talks abruptly broke off. "He wants to turn to a new page in Syrian history," says a former Assad adviser. "He wants Bashar to have a fresh start...
...Under the right conditions, Israel will return the Golan Heights to Syria, and Syria will establish normal relations with Israel. Last week quite a bit of goodwill was on display. The Syrians instructed Palestinian groups in Damascus to stop plotting violence against Israel. And Israel said it had "no problem" picking up negotiations where they left off in 1996. If Israel can finalize a treaty with Damascus, one with Lebanon will probably follow. Another good sign: Yasser Arafat is eager to establish a Palestinian state--and Barak is not opposed...
...Syrian talks may stumble over the security arrangements Israel demands, notably limited-troop zones around the Golan and access to intelligence from a monitoring station there. At the same time, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are famously immune to deadlines. The lives of the two peoples have overlapped too long to be untangled easily. What's more, a deal on one front may make an accord on another harder to sell to concession-weary Israelis. That should all be plenty to keep Barak wide awake...
...rousing call for a "peace of the brave" with his Palestinian and other Arab neighbors. And in the clearest signal yet that he plans a substantial land-for-peace trade with Syria, Barak offered a peace agreement based on United Nations resolutions recognizing Syrian sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights. He also repeated his campaign pledge to get Israeli forces out of Lebanon within a year. And Barak vowed to implement the Wye River agreement signed - and then suspended ? by his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu. But in a sign of possible tensions looming down the road, he also affirmed Israel...
Assad has long wanted to reclaim the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau captured by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967, the loss of which he regards as a personal and national indignity. Outpowered militarily, Assad knows negotiations are his best option. The Syrian leader, 68, suffers multiple ailments, which are thought to include diabetes and heart disease. He is eager to prepare the succession of his son Bashar, 34, a mild-mannered, British-trained ophthalmologist who emerged as heir apparent only after his elder brother Basil died in a 1994 car crash. "Assad has more a sense...