Posted on 07/10/2008 1:38:28 PM PDT by forkinsocket
BEIRUT, JULY 3 - The border between Israel and Syria, sealed for 60 years, has been opened exceptionally to allow the passing of some 80 Syrian students from the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967, who are preparing to start their university studies in Damascus, Syrian state-controlled daily al-Thawra reported today.
The passing of the first 82 students took place yesterday in Quneitra, a "freed" Syrian town destroyed in 1973 in the war between Syria and Israel, thanks to the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), the newspaper reported.
The two countries formally have remained in a state of war since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948-49. In May 2008, after eight years of standstill in the peace talks, Damascus and Tel Aviv announced the launch of indirect talks with the mediation of Turkey.
In the next days some 200 Syrian students from the Druze localities in occupied Golan, annexed to the Jewish state in 1981, will cross the border divided into groups, to join their university colleagues.
Every year, under an agreement between Damascus and Tel Aviv mediated by ICRC and the UN, hundreds of young Druze from Golan visit Syria. The border opens also in exceptional cases for the rare weddings of Druze women from Golan with Syrian Druze.
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