World May. 22, 2008 - 05:29AM JST ( 9 )

JERUSALEM —

Israel and Syria announced on Wednesday they had resumed peace talks through Turkish mediators after an eight-year freeze, with Damascus saying it had a prior undertaking that Israel would return the whole of the occupied Golan Heights.

“Israel and Syria began indirect peace talks under Turkish auspices,” the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the aim was to pave the way “for the resumption of direct negotiations aimed at achieving just and comprehensive peace in the region.”

Muallem said Damascus had received Israeli commitments for a full withdrawal from the strategic plateau, which the Jewish state occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed in 1981 in a move never recognized by the international community.

A full withdrawal from the Golan, which overlooks large parts of northern Israel, would also retrace the border on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s main water source.

On Wednesday night, Olmert said Israel was prepared to make substantial concessions in the quest for peace.

“We are ready to make substantial concessions to Syria that will be quite painful,” Olmert told a gathering in Tel Aviv, without elaborating.

He welcomed the fact that peace was back on the table “after a freeze of eight years and that Israel and Syria are talking peace again instead of shooting at each other.”

“The negotiations are going to take a long time,” Olmert said. “It will not be easy, and we have no illusions. I am convinced that the possibility of success is greater than the risk” involved.

A senior Israeli official insisted there had been no change to Israel’s policy of accepting the principle of a withdrawal from the Golan as part of a peace deal without specifying the depth of any pullout at this stage.

Olmert’s office said Syria and Israel “decided to conduct the dialogue in a serious and continuous manner in a bid to reach a comprehensive peace.”

The United States welcomed the move.

“We think that the expansion of the circle of peace would be a good thing. And of course it would be very very helpful if that included an agreement with Syria,” said David Welch, assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs.

The last round of Syrian-Israeli peace talks broke down in 2000 over the fate of the Golan, which is now home to more than 15,000 Israelis and 18,000 Syrians, mostly Druze.

Last month, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Turkey had passed on a message from Israel expressing its readiness to swap the Golan for peace.

The idea of a full withdrawal from the Golan remains highly controversial in Israel.

Housing Minister Zeev Boim, of Olmert’s centrist Kadima party, said he opposes “in principle any withdrawal from the Golan Heights.”

“Nevertheless we should hear exactly how and on what issues the negotiations are held,” Boim said.

“A peace agreement can be reached with the Syrians only if they end all terror activities, including supporting and arming Hezbollah in Lebanon and giving up its strategic dependence on Iran,” he added.

Syria has been closely allied with Iran for the past three decades.

Israel regards the Islamic regime as its main strategic threat and has long insisted that if Syria is to be a peaceful neighbor it must end its alliance with Iran.

A first round of peace feelers between the two countries last year ran up against Syria’s objection to any explicit linkage between a peace deal and its support for Iran and Arab militant groups.

Israeli settlers in the Golan bristled at the suggestion that the territory could be handed back to Syria.

“A prime minister who is ready to renounce a region under Israeli sovereignty, to give it to the Syrians and to the Iranians, puts the future of of the state of Israel in danger,” said Elia Malka, president of the council of Jewish settlements.

Several members of parliament dismissed the announcement as a bid to divert attention from the latest graft investigation against Olmert.

“Olmert is trying to fool decent peace-seeking citizens,” said MP Shelly Yehimovicz of the center-left Labor party, a key coalition partner in Olmert’s government.

“His goal is to divert public attention from the cash envelopes he might have received and from the investigation against him.”

Olmert is scheduled to be questioned by police for the second time in a month over suspicions that he had unlawfully received cash from a U.S. businessman between 1990 and 2003, before he became premier.

An opinion poll published on Wednesday night by Channel Two television, showed that 57% of those questioned thought the announcement of talks was linked to Olmert’s political problems.

At the same time, 70% objected to making concessions, while only 22% were in favor.

Despite a 1974 armistice, the two countries are technically in a state of war.

Israel launched an air strike against a site in northeastern Syria in September which Damascus says is a military facility under construction. The United States says it was a nuclear plant being built with the help of North Korea.

Wire reports