 DAMASCUS - Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Thursday that the Israeli government was not ready to make peace with Syria, stressing that negotiations must resume from the point they had last reached in 2000. He warned that “weak governments in Israel are capable of launching aggression ... we should be cautious.”
| Olmert can't figure out what to have for breakfast, I don't think he's capable of launching a war. |
“In fact, there is no progress in the peace process and there is no contact with Israel over this issue, neither secret nor overt, because Israel is not ready for a just and comprehensive peace that requires, to be implemented, strong leadership that could make decisive decisions,” Assad said, addressing the first session of the parliament’s 9th legislative four-year term.
| He means that Israel isn't ready to surrender. |
He said that Israel would be required to show a “clear and unequivocal readiness to give back the occupied land to the 1967 borders. The return of the Golan is nonnegotiable for us.”
| Why don't you make them leave? Oh right, the vaunted Syrian military has a problem with that. Short of that, what are you going to offer in exchange -- peace? Maybe Nasrullah will co-sign that check? |
Assad made it clear that Syria had no conditions for resuming peace talks with Israel, but added that the peace process had ”requirements which are bases and principles that Syria could never abandon.”
“Returning to the zero point is impossible. Negotiations must resume from where they had stopped,” he said.
| Negotiations are parked right about where the last Israeli tank stopped on the road to Damascus. |
Assad said the policy of isolating Syria “has faced nothing but failure,” adding that he “who wants to isolate Syria is in fact isolating himself from the region’s issues, because Syria has its role.”
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