KUWAIT CITY: The US has been in secret contact with Syrian officials in the hopes of realising a comprehensive Israeli-Syrian peace treaty, the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai reported.
The past few weeks had witnessed an ''unprecedented Syrian co-operation'' in the peace process, prompting Washington to talk with Syrian officials to reach a peace agreement between Syria and Israel, informed sources told al-Rai.
Sources said the Syrian Foreign Minister, Walid al-Moallem, had sent positive signals to the US showing that ''the Syrians are ready to re-engage in dialogue with the Israelis to reach peace''.
According to the paper, these developments were behind the decision of the US President, Barack Obama, to bypass the Senate last week and appoint Robert Ford as the first US ambassador to Damascus since 2005, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The White House believes that an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement will be ''a breakthrough in the peace process as a whole to achieve peace in the Palestinian territories''.
Sources said that an Obama adviser, Dennis Ross, told the US administration that he found ''Syria ready to move away from Iran and reduce relations with Hezbollah and Hamas, and work with the US in the fight against terrorism''.
The Israelis, for their part, expressed a willingness to return to Syria the occupied Golan Heights, reach an agreement on water rights and normalise relations with Damascus.
Syria demands the return of the Golan, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel, as a prerequisite for any peace deal with Israel.
Israel captured the Golan in the 1967 war, and in 1981 passed a law applying Israeli ''laws, jurisdiction and administration'' to the territory, in effect annexing it. The annexation was not recognised internationally. Direct Israel-Syria peace talks fell apart in 2000, over a dispute about Syrian access to the Sea of Galilee.
Turkish-mediated Israel-Syria talks failed to produce any breakthrough.
? A PALESTINIAN woman died after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli forces at a protest against Israel's separation barrier in a West Bank village.
A hospital director from Ramallah, Dr Muhammad Aideh, said the woman had arrived on Friday suffering from tear-gas asphyxiation.
More than 3000 people attended her funeral at the weekend. The Israeli military described the protest as a ''violent and illegal riot''. The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, condemned what he called the Israeli military's latest ''crime''.
The woman, Jawaher Abu Rahmah, 36, was the sister of Bassem Abu Rahmah, a well-known activist in the West Bank village of Bilin, who died during a similar protest in 2009 after being struck in the chest by a tear-gas canister fired by Israeli forces.
Local Palestinians, bolstered by international and Israeli supporters, have held weekly protests against Israel's separation barrier for the past five years, turning the village into a symbol of defiance.
Agencies
