Syrian state media call for Israeli pledge on Golan heights

Peace with Syria requires an Israeli commitment to surrender the strategic Golan Heights and cannot be achieved through secret negotiations, a Syrian state newspaper said today, a day after an Israeli newspaper reported that envoys of the two countries had agreed a framework for peace during secret talks.

Syrian officials and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have dismissed the report in the Israeli daily Haaretz, which said that Israeli and Syrian representatives met secretly in Europe – with the full knowledge of their countries’ leaders – several times between September 2004 and July 2006.