ARABS-ISRAEL - Feb. 8 - Assad Wants Full Golan Return.

In his first comments since Sharon's election, Syrian Pres. Bashar Al Assad tells Al Sharq Al Awsat a full return of the Golan Heights is the basis for resumption of peace talks with Israel. He adds: "We tell everyone these are our conditions for peace, whoever can meet them we are ready to resume negotiations with..." (It seems unlikely that the hawkish prime minister-elect would be ready to make the concessions, which would have to be more generous than offers put on the table by the outgoing government of Barak. Nor does Assad appear willing to allow the Syrian track to be used to put pressure on the Palestinians. Sharon said very little about Syria during the electoral campaign. Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the UN and an adviser to Sharon, expressed concerns in a recent speech about the intensifying relations between Syria and Iraq. Reports in the Israeli media said Sharon had promised settler groups in the Golan Heights he would keep Israel's hold on the plateau and expand Jewish settlements there. The 35-year-old Assad, who succeeded his father last year, has maintained Syria's traditional stance - that Israel must be ready for a full withdrawal from the Golan, occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, before talks on other issues, including security, are launched). The withdrawal, says Assad, would have to include the return of the north-eastern shore of Lake Tiberias (the issue that broke the back of last year's negotiations with the outgoing Israeli government). "What President Assad (the late Hafez Al Assad) demanded, I also demand. I don't add anything to it and I do not subtract anything. We in Syria will not give up our rights". (Israeli officials say the Syrian position appears to have hardened, with "comprehensive" peace now defined as including the Palestinians, as opposed to just the Syrians and the Lebanese. Israeli-Syrian negotiations were resumed in late 1999, after a 4-year break. But the talks collapsed after two rounds. Israel then ended its more than 22-year occupation of Lebanon, where Hizbollah was waging a war of attrition against Israeli troops. The Lebanese-Israeli border has remained tense, however, with Hizbollah launching periodic attacks on Israeli targets in Shebaa Farms, a border area claimed by Lebanon and seized by Israel from Syria in 1967. The US and the EU, fearing an escalation on the border that could lead to direct Syrian-Israeli confrontation, have urged Damascus to restrain Hizbollah. But Assad says that although Syria backs Hizbollah, it does not interfere in the details and timing of its military operations).