Syria rejects Israeli invitation to talks as a media manoeuvre

Israel has invited the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, to come to Jerusalem for new peace negotiations, but Syria has refused the offer.

President Assad has repeatedly called for talks with Israel in recent weeks, but Syria dismissed yesterday's invitation to Jerusalem as a "media manoeuvre".

The Syrian Expatriates Minister, Buthaina Shaaban, said: "We need a serious response ... A serious response is to say yes, we are interested in peace, we want to negotiate."

For Mr Assad to set foot in Jerusalem while its Arab eastern half, including the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, is under Israeli occupation and there is no peace deal with the Palestinians would be to overturn half a century of Syrian rhetoric - a move he was unlikely to make for no more than a vague promise of talks.

But for Israelis, the parallel was to the former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who accepted an Israeli invitation to Jerusalem in 1977 - a visit which paved the way to 1979's historic peace deal with Egypt.

For decades, Israelis have talked of one day being able to drive to Damascus for lunch, as they now flock to Egypt's Sinai coast in hundreds to catch the summer sun. It seems the lunch in Damascus will have to wait a while yet.

None the less, there are signs that Mr Assad is serious about wanting new negotiations on peace with Israel in exchange for the return of the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who met the Syrian President recently, summoned the Israeli ambassador to tell him Mr Assad was in earnest.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, told a recent cabinet meeting that he believed President Assad was willing to forgo the coast of the Sea of Galilee, on which his late father, Hafez al-Assad, refused to compromise at the last talks, which broke down four years ago.

But Mr Sharon has also expressed scepticism about Mr Assad's intentions, and said that there will be no progress on peace talks until Syria clamps down on the activities of Palestinian militants on its territory, and reins in the Lebanese Hizbollah militia on Israel's northern border.

Mr Assad is believed to want new talks with Israel because he is coming under increasing pressure from the US, which has voted in tough sanctions against Syria. Having opposed the US in the Iraq war, and with American troops now on his doorstep, Mr Assad badly needs some credit in Washington.

Yesterday's invitation for Mr Assad to visit Jerusalem came not from Mr Sharon but from the Israeli President, Moshe Katsav. Mr Katsav has little political power - his role is largely ceremonial. There has been intense debate in Israel over whether Mr Sharon is right to spurn Syria's advances, and President Katsav may have acted on his own initiative.

But the invitation may have been a ploy agreed with Mr Sharon to test how far Mr Assad would go - or even to quieten the debate at home by offering him an invitation he was unlikely to accept.

Many Israelis have begun to cool towards the idea of peace with Syria in recent years. When Israel was still mired in Lebanon, peace with Syria offered a way out. The northern front is no longer so pressing.

Syria has always insisted that it will only agree to peace if Israel agrees to return all of the Golan Heights - and many Israelis have begun to question whether it is a price they are willing to pay. The Golan contains the best vineyards for Israel's wine industry, and Israel's only ski resort.

¿ An Israeli taxi driver, Ofer Shwartzboim, aged 39, has been arrested for driving a Palestinian suicide bomber to the site of an attack near Tel Aviv last month, the first time a Jew has been accused of assisting a bomber in the past three years of fighting.