Clinton-Assad Summit Has Special Significance: Syrian FM

Syrian Foreign Minister Faruk Shareh said Monday that the upcoming summit between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Syrian President Hafez Assad is of special significance in helping the Syrian-Israeli talks out of impasse.

This is the first Syrian official comment after Clinton announced in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, earlier in the day that he would meet Assad in Geneva Sunday to try to revive the Syrian track that remains frozen since January.

Shareh said at a joint press conference with his visiting Qatari counterpart Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabir al-Thani that future Israeli-Syrian talks would be based on the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference that kicked off the Mideast peace process and tackled the problems left off from last round of talks in Washington. Syria and Israel held two rounds of peace talks that resumed in December last year after a 45-month suspension in Washington last December and January before hitting a snag again due to disputes over which issues should be discussed first.

The Syrian foreign minister expressed the hope that the upcoming summit will be an important opportunity to revive all the facets of the Mideast peace process, paving the way for the realization of a just, comprehensive peace in the region.

"We hope that expected targets on all tracks will materialize," he stressed.

Should they resume, the Syrian-Israeli peace talks are expected to still focus on four issues - borders, water, security arrangements and normalization of bilateral ties.

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