Syrian Preconditions for Talks with Israel

The Saudi daily Al-Watan reported on January 2 that Syria gave the United States a number of preconditions for resuming negotiations with Israel. The report, citing American and European sources, said that Syria demands that Israel adhere to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's pledge to withdraw completely from the Golan and that the negotiations pick up where they left off rather than starting from scratch. Syria has also demanded that the negotiations not be bilateral and that the Syrian and Palestinian tracks of the negotiations not be separated. The paper added that the Syrians want the US to provide guarantees on these points before negotiations resume, but the Americans have thus far declined to do so.

The report, which came just over a week after US envoy William Burns arrived in Damascus to discuss the resumption of negotiations with Syrian President Bashar Assad, contradicts Western news reports saying that Assad's only precondition for resuming talks with Israel is that they continue from the point at which they were halted one year ago.

Al-Doumari Suspends Publication

Ali Farzat, the renowned Syrian cartoonist who opened the country's first privately-owned newspaper, Al-Doumari, early last year, announced on January 22 that the paper is suspending publication. Although the first issues of the weekly paper had a circulation of over 70,000, the number of copies sold slipped to under 15,000 as the publication gradually abandoned constructive criticism of the government's economic policies under pressure from the regime and increasingly began to resemble Syria's state-run newspapers. Recent months witnessed the resignations of most of the paper's well-known personnel, including Farzat's brother Adnan.

Britain Accuses Syria of Violating Iraq Sanctions

In a surprising departure from Western silence regarding Syrian violations of UN sanctions against Iraq, on January 28 Britain publicly accused Syria of illegally importing and reselling over 100,000 barrels of Iraqi oil per day. "It's the most serious violation of sanctions since 1990 because of the volume of oil," said a British official during a session of the UN sanctions committee. The Syrians have consistently denied that they are importing Iraqi oil since the pipeline between the two countries re-opened in 2000. According to most estimates, Syria imports over 200,000 barrels of Iraqi oil per day, generating over $1 billion annually for the Iraqi regime.

CIA Report Expresses Concern about Syrian Nuclear "Intentions"

On January 10, the American Central Intelligence Agency issued a declassified report to the US Senate saying it "remains concerned about Syria's intentions regarding nuclear weapons." The report added, "Syria maintains a ballistic missile and rocket force of hundreds of FROG rockets, Scuds, and SS-21 SRBMs. With considerable foreign assistance, Syria progressed to Scud production using primarily locally manufactured parts. Syrian regional concerns may lead Damascus to seek a longer range ballistic missile capability such as North Korea's No Dong medium range ballistic missile."