Syrian President Hafez al-Assadon January 22 held talks with his visiting Egyptian counterpart HosniMubarak on ways of pushing the Middle East peace process forward amid the complicated situation in the peacemaking.

Egyptian Minister of Information Muhammad Yousuf el-Sharif, who accompanied Mubarak on the visit, said that the two leaders discussed the current situation on the Arab arena and the need for Arabs to take a collective action in dealing with the peacemaking with Israel.

Sharif said that Mubarak's visit comes within the framework of continued and sustained coordination between the two leaders.

Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1979. And since then Egypt has been a key mediator in peace negotiations between Israel, on the one hand, andthe Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon, on the other.

Syria resumed its peace talks with Israel last December after a nearly four-year suspension. But the third round of talks to have started Wednesday in the US have been postponed indefinitely due to differences over which issues should be tackled first.

Syria wants to negotiate a full return of the Israeli-occupied Golan Hights first while Israel prefers security arrangements and normalization of bilateral ties precedes the Golan issue in the negotiations.

The fate of Golan, Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in 1981, is the core of the Syrian-Israeli talks.