LONDON, Oct 10: Syria and Israel can live side-by-side, in peace and harmony, accepting each other's existence, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad said on Monday.
He also added that an impartial arbiter was needed to mediate between the two countries, but said that the United States lacked both the will and the vision to fulfil that role.
But Israel was swift in rebuffing Mr Assad’s remarks, saying that it would not negotiate with Syria as long as the country continued to back militant groups.
"Israel has always been heavily interested in achieving peace with its neighbours," said Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office. "Bashar al-Assad has no interest in peace."
"He is worried about world reaction to his involvement in funding and backing and safe-havening terrorism," she said. "He should be noted by his actions, not his words."
For Israel to agree to renew negotiations, Syria would first need to change its stance regarding militant groups, Eisin said.
"Simple things -- not allowing all the terrorist organisations to have their headquarters openly in Damascus," she said. "To not have the foreign minister of Syria say he wishes he could be fighting with Hezbollah would be a great step in the right direction."
Answering a question of whether Israel and Syria could live side-by-side in the troubled Middle East at some point in the future, Mr Assad told the BBC: "Yes. The answer is yes."
Mr Assad also said: "It's not only the problem between the two parties. You need arbiter, you need impartial arbiter."
"This is the role of the United States, this is the supportive role of the United Nations, and this is the supportive role of the Europeans," he told the broadcaster.
But Mr Assad added that the United States ‘doesn't have will to play this role, it doesn't have the vision towards a peace’.
His remarks contrast with comments he made in an interview with Kuwait's Al-Anbaa daily published on Saturday, when he said a war with Israel cannot be ruled out as long as a lasting peace in the Middle East has not been achieved.
"In principle, we (always) expect that there will be an Israeli aggression at any time. We all know that Israel is militarily powerful and is backed directly by the United States," Mr Assad said. He also said that Syria was ‘against the occupation’ of Iraq.
"The resistance is one of our concepts that we adopt, not against the British or Americans in particular, as a concept against any occupying force," he said.
Mr Assad added later that that did not mean Syria supported the Iraqi resistance: "That doesn't mean you support it with money or with armaments. I'm talking about the political concept ... you adopt it as a right."
He also denied that Syria either let guerillas pass through its borders to Iraq, or that it supported the Hezbollah militia with arms in its clash with Israel two months ago.
"The resistance in Iraq is Iraqi resistance. It doesn't come from anywhere outside the border. We don't allow and we don't support because ... If you allow terrorists to attack somewhere, anywhere in the world it will attack you later."
Asked whether Syria helped Hezbollah by supplying weapons, Mr Assad told the BBC: "No ... We helped them politically."
Mr Assad went on to deny that Syria had any involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, saying that Mr Hariri's murder ‘affected Syria as bad as it affected Lebanon. He supported Syria in many difficult positions and stance’.—AFP
