Last Update: 07/10/2004 01:11
Martin Indyk: Assad offering to make peace with Israel
By Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Syrian President Bashar Assad is offering to make peace with Israel and says he is ready to cooperate with the United States in stabilizing Iraq, a former senior State Department official said Wednesday.
"Something is going on in Syria and it is time for us to pay attention," said Martin Indyk, assistant secretary of state for the Near East and U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration.
In a three-hour meeting with the Syrian president last month in Damascus, Indyk said he detected a "clear change" in Assad's views on a number of fronts.
On peacemaking, Assad offered to hold talks with Israel without preconditions, Indyk said, and had made several overtures to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the latter rebuffed.
In the past, Indyk said, Syria had insisted that any peace talks should resume where they left off during the Clinton administration - with Israel offering to give up all of the Golan Heights, a strategic area Israel won in the 1967 Mideast war.
And, Indyk said, Assad had dropped a demand that Israel reach an agreement with the Palestinians before Israel could resume negotiations with Syria.
On the domestic side, Indyk said, Assad spoke "about the need to reform the government."
"It's worth watching and it is worth testing," Indyk said at a seminar at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, of which Indyk is the director.
Indyk said Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa was not at his meeting with Assad, evidence the former American diplomat said that change was under way and that al-Sharaa "and others in the old guard are being systematically silenced."
On Monday, Assad shuffled his Cabinet. Ghazi Kenaan, 62, until two years ago Syria's top intelligence general in neighboring Lebanon, was named interior minister. Al-Sharaa retained his post. (snipped)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/485831.html
I dunno about this one... I'd like to believe in another Libya turnover... But this is too close to where all the action is... Maybe someone is putting pressure on Assad.... anyone have any clues?
Doesn't pass the smell test.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/485939.html
Last update - 22:41 07/10/2004
Blast at Hilton Hotel in Taba, close to Egypt-Israel border
By Amos Harel, Yoav Stern and Revital Levy-Stein, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haartetz Service
An explosion occurred at the Hilton Hotel in the Egyptian town of Taba in the Sinai Desert on Thursday evening, on the border with Israel.
There were reports of casualties in the blast, which took places at around 10 P.M. The Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera said that most of those wounded in the blast were Israelis.
A ceiling in the hotel collapsed following the blast, Army Radio said.
An Israeli witness at the Hilton said that the hotel was on fire, and that dozens of bodies were lying on the floor.
Within 45 minutes of the blast, seven of the wounded had been taken to Yoseftal Hospital in Eilat, Channel 10 television said.
In the wake of the explosion, the Israeli defense establishment amassed a large number of rescue personnel on the Egyptian border, and Israel Air Force planes were scrambled.
It is unclear what caused the explosion. Some reports suggested that the blast could have been caused by a gas cylinder.
Many Israelis have visited Egypt over the past month, during the period of Jewish holidays. Last month, the defense establishment cautioned Israelis against traveling to Sinai, following warnings of a potential terrorist attack.