WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 (JTA) When Israeli and Syrian negotiators meet next week in Shepherdstown, W. Va., they will be secluded in a small town that sits just across the Potomac River from the Antietam battlefield of the Civil War.
The Israeli and Syrian officials who will be seeking to reach a framework for a peace deal know about battlefields: They fought each other in several bloody wars.
The Israeli delegation is being led by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who also serves as the country’s defense minister. Barak, a former elite army commando and chief of staff, fought against the Syrians on the Golan Heights in 1967, when Israel captured the strategic plateau.
In seeking political support for the highest-level talks ever with Syria, Barak has reminded Israelis of his time battling the Syrians.
“I am fully familiar with every valley and every rock in the Golan,” he said during a speech to the Knesset earlier this month before leaving for Washington for the initial round of talks with Syria.
Barak also has experience negotiating with the Syrians. As chief of staff, Barak negotiated with Syria during the previous round of negotiations, which began in 1994 and were cut off in 1996.
It is not clear yet how the talks will proceed. Israel has suggested discussing security and civil affairs first; Syria has said territorial questions should be tackled at the beginning.
Barak will be accompanied by two other former top generals Uri Saguy, the former head of military intelligence who was appointed to head the negotiating team, and Danny Yatom, the former head of the Mossad and now Barak’s chief of staff.
Before being picked to head the team, Saguy reportedly indicated at a Rotary Club meeting in the Israeli Arab town of Shfaram in early November that Israel will have to return all of the Golan if it wants peace with Damascus. Saguy has neither confirmed nor denied the remarks.
Other senior members of the Israeli delegation are Foreign Minister David Levy; Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, who participated as a Foreign Ministry lawyer during the Camp David negotiations with Egypt and headed peace negotiations with Jordan; and Maj. Gen. Shlomo Yannai, who has been appointed the senior army representative to the talks and will head the team for security arrangements.
While Barak will be in Shepherdstown, his adversary who commanded the Syrian forces in 1967 will not be there.
Syrian President Hafez Assad, who was defense minister in 1967 when Israel captured the Golan Heights, is not expected to attend the talks and will send Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa in his stead.
However, the independent Palestinian daily al-Ayyam quoted Washington-based Arab diplomats as saying that Assad would make his first visit to Washington next month after the talks resume.
The diplomats told the paper that Assad would hold talks with President Clinton during his visit, but would not meet any Israeli officials.
American and Israeli officials have said they know of no plans for such a visit. Sharaa, who has been foreign minister for the past 15 years and has overseen negotiations with Israel since they began in 1991 at the Madrid peace conference, is seen as Assad’s right-hand man.
“It’s very evident that Foreign Minister Sharaa is here representing President Assad, and that he has President Assad’s confidence,” U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Dec. 16 after Clinton announced that the talks would resume in January.
Albright also said Assad is “very much a part of these talks, whether he’s currently here or not.”
A report in the Arabic paper al-Hayat also indicated that the former Syrian chief of staff, Hikmat Shihabi, may join the Syrian team in the negotiations.
Shihabi met with Barak when Barak was still chief of staff and with Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, another former chief of staff who is now minister of tourism, during previous Israeli-Syrian talks.
Other top officials who were part of the Syrian negotiating team during the opening round of talks earlier this month include Riyad al-Dadoudi, legal adviser to the foreign minister, and Maj. Gen. Ibrahim al-Omar, who represented the Syrian army.
Yousuf Shakkour, deputy foreign minister and a former chief of staff, will not likely attend the new round of talks, al-Hayat reported. Shakkour collapsed at the end of the Rose Garden ceremony kicking off the talks earlier this month. Several members of the Israeli delegation came to Shakkour’s aid when he fell ill.
The top officials are also expected to be accompanied by experts in the key areas that will be the focus of the talks including security arrangements, borders and water, normalization of ties and Lebanon.
As the two sides sit down for what is being billed as intensive and open-ended talks, their American hosts will be in West Virginia to “facilitate” the talks, Albright said. During the initial round of talks, the two delegations were never without their American hosts in the room.
Albright, Dennis Ross, the U.S. special Middle East coordinator, and the rest of the American peace process team will stay with their Israeli and Syrian counterparts at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center.
Clinton also is expected to play a key role, as he did during the Wye negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
American officials have said they wanted a site that was relatively secluded but also close enough to Washington so the president could participate.
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