Syria: Israeli peace talk offer 'not serious'
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Officials in government of Assad, left, dismissed Katsav's offer.
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The strategic Golan Heights are at the center of Israeli-Syrian tensions.
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SPECIAL REPORT
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JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel's president invited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Jerusalem for peace talks Monday, but a Syrian official dismissed the offer.
Israeli President Moshe Katsav issued the invitation during a radio interview.
"I'm the president of Israel, and I have the authority to invite foreign presidents to come to Israel," he said. "I invite the president of Syria to come to Jerusalem to meet with the country's leaders and conduct serious negotiations, if that is his wish."
It was unclear if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon supported Katsav's request. The request came a day after Sharon said he was ready for peace talks with Syria, but only if Damascus halted support for "terrorist agents."
Syria called the invitation a diversion. Buthayna Shaaban, a Syrian government minister, said the offer "is not serious."
"All the smoke is only like a media balloon trying to draw attention away from real facts on the ground," Shaaban said in Damascus.
"What the Israelis are doing on the ground is building more settlements, occupying more territories [in the Golan Heights], doubling the number of settlers and then talking about visits," he said. "This is not serious. This is not serious talk at all."
U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 2000 over the issue of returning to Damascus the Golan Heights, which Israel took during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Shaaban said if Israel wants to make a serious response to talks, it should say, "Yes, we are interested in peace, we want to negotiate and to resume peace negotiations from where they stopped with the co-sponsorship of the United States."
On Sunday, Sharon said, "I believe that what should be done is Syria should stop the help of those terrorist organizations. If that would happen, I believe that Israel would be very glad to negotiate."
The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa met Sunday with the European Union's special representative to the Mideast peace process, Marc Otte, who said the official had reiterated his country's readiness to resume talks.
Sharon insisted that when talks resumed, they would start from scratch -- after Syria stops backing organizations such as Hezbollah, which Israel and the United States have designated as a terrorist group.
In the past, Syria has insisted that Israel adhere to unwritten agreements made by Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in earlier negotiations -- most notably that Israel completely withdraw from the Golan Heights.
