Word: syrian
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...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...
...eagerly watch the overtures to peace progress this summer. Like everyone else here, I excitedly look forward towards a speedy withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, a meeting between Ehud Barak and Syrian President Hafez Assad and the declaration of a Palestinian state. But this excitement is tempered by the reality of the abject living conditions, which will probably prove the biggest obstacle to any real peace, especially in the hearts and minds of the people...
...fast start, issuing a 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...
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...
Barak, a former army chief, imagines his legacy as that of a warrior turned statesman who completed the circle of peace around Israel. The incoming PM promises to proceed toward a final agreement with the Palestinians, but aides say the Syrians are his first priority. With the Palestinians, Barak can expect drawn-out negotiations involving issues like the status of Jerusalem and the future of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories. By contrast, a Syrian deal could come quickly--possibly within a year. "With the Syrians, it's cleaner," says an aide close to Barak. "The deal...