ARABS-ISRAEL - Jan. 10 - Peace Talks Pause.

After a week of high-level talks that ended without visible signs of progress, US Pres. Clinton says he was "quite hopeful" of prospects for peace between Israel and Syria. US State Department spokesman Rubin says that Israeli PM Barak and Syrian FM Farouq Al Shara would return to the US on Jan. 19. Clinton says: "We are on a track in which the Israelis, the Syrians, I hope soon the Lebanese and already the Palestinians have committed themselves to work through these very difficult long-standing issues over the course of the next 2 months". Rubin says Palestinian leader Arafat is also expected in Washington on Jan. 20. He adds a 4-way meeting with US, Syrian and Israeli delegations was not anticipated. Rubin describes the talks as being "on the right track". There had been "a warming trend in the atmospherics between the Syrians and the Israelis", who ate together on Jan. 9 night for the 1st time. (In a week of talks dogged by procedural disagreements, the one sign of tangible progress was a US-drafted paper outlining areas of agreement and remaining differences.) Rubin says the US had received "some informal and preliminary comments and clarifications" on the document and expected more to take place during the recess. (The document raised speculation that Israel might have agreed to a core Syrian demand : a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, occupied in the 1967 ME war. When the delegations return, the format of the talks will be similar to those of last week, with 4 committees to discuss the critical issues of borders, security, normalisation of relations and water sharing.) As opponents to withdrawal from the Golan stage their first big demonstration, Israeli officials stress no such agreement was reached. Israeli FM Levy returns from the talks stressing that Israel had not agreed to Syria's core demand for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan. He says: "Israel has not agreed to any border whatsoever and this will only be decided in negotiations". He adds Syria's demand for a withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 border - before the war - was "unacceptable to us". At the White House, Clinton says Syrian and Israeli officials "really talked about the substance of their differences for the 1st time. They were very open, they were very candid, they covered all the issues and I think they broke a lot of ground". He adds: "It's tough. I told you it was tough at the beginning. I still think we can get there but they are going to have to come back here determined to do so and I believe they will". (A deal must be approved by a referendum in Israel.) According to Israeli TV estimates, the Tel Aviv rally to galvanise opposition to a withdrawal and an evacuation of 17,000 settlers attracted a turnout of more than 100,000 people.