Brussels, 04/08/2006 (Agence Europe) - After his meeting with president Assad on Thursday in Damascus, the Spanish minister for foreign affairs Angel Miguel Moratinos declared that the Syrian authorities “wanted to be part of the solution and not part of the problem” in the Lebanon conflict. According to El Pais on 4 August, the former Special EU Representative to the Middle East explained that Syria was committed to “exerting all its influence” on Hezbollah, while demanding, in exchange, “global peace” in the region (which for Damascus means the return of the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967).
In an interview to the Financial Times Deutschland on 4 August, Avi Primor, the former Ambassador to Germany (and former representative to the EU) said, “”We have a lot to offer the Syrians and the Syrians have a lot to offer us. The price is called the Golan Heights”.
While Mr Moratinos was visiting Beirut and Damascus, the German minister for foreign affairs Franck-Walter Steinmeier was on the telephone to his Syrian counterpart Am Muallim. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 4 August indicated that during its Extraordinary EU Council on 1 August, which focused on the conflict in the Lebanon (EUROPE 9244), Mr Steinmeier called on the European Union to offer Syria, in exchange for its cooperation in support of peace and stabilisation in the region, help with strengthening its economy, which could possibly come about through a breakthrough involving the association agreement which has been subject to lengthy negotiations between the EU and Damascus (David Hammerstein MEP, Spanish Green, has just made a similar suggestion: EUROPE 9245). On the other hand, France does not appear extremely enthusiastic about dialogue with Syria and in Le Figaro on 4 August, the foreign affairs minister Philippe Douste-Blazy repeated, “at the moment it does not appear propitious to go to Syria or hold meetings with the Syrian authorities” (at the beginning of the week he met his Iranian counterpart at the Iranian embassy in Beirut: Editor's note).
In an interview to the Monde on 4 July, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert in reply to whether it was necessary to speak to Syria said, “Everyone knows that Israel has absolutely no intention to enter into a violent conflict with Syria. I hope that the Syrians are going to act responsibly and see the advantages for doing so. So far there is no evidence that they have done so”. In connection with German soldiers being part of a future international stabilisation force in Lebanon, Mr Olmert informed the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “I have informed Chancellor Angela Merkel that we have absolutely no problem with German soldiers in Southern Lebanon…Currently there is no other country that is acting in a way that is more friendly to Israel than Germany”.