Syrian President Bashar Assad on October 11 accused Israel of working against peace between their countries, despite Western efforts to help negotiations resume. “There are ideas being put forward by some countries. They are preliminary and we do not know if they will push the process forward for not … the atmosphere is not positive,” Assad told reporters after meeting Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in the Syrian capital. “The Arab side really wants the peace process and the Israeli side is working in the opposite direction,” he added. Assad was referring to US and French moves to relaunch Syrian-Israeli talks which broke off in 2008 without a deal. Damascus has stuck to its demand for a total Israeli pullout from the Golan, a strategic plateau that Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East War. Indirect talks were being mediated by Turkey, whose ties with Israel worsened this year after a deadly Israeli attack on an aid ship carrying Turkish activists, who were heading for the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli blockade.
SYRIA ACCUSES ISRAEL OF HINDERING PEACE PROCESS
Syrian President Bashar Assad on October 11 accused Israel of working against peace between their countries, despite Western efforts to help negotiations resume. “There are ideas being put forward by some countries. They are preliminary and we do not know if they will push the process forward for not
