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Israel slams Iran-Syria alliance

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Archived Picture - Israel denounced an alliance between Iran and Syria that it said cast doubts on Syrian peace intentions, following a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Damascus, AFP reported.

LONDON, July 21 (IranMania) - Israel denounced an alliance between Iran and Syria that it said cast doubts on Syrian peace intentions, following a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Damascus, AFP reported.

"The fact that the Damascus regime chose Ahmadinejad as a partner in a strategic alliance raises serious doubt on recent statements from Syria on its intentions for peace," foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev told AFP.

"You cannot be friends with someone who embodies the most extreme refusal of peace (with Israel) and expect the international community to consider Syria a country working for peace," he added.

Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said the visit by Ahmadinejad, who has caused fear and alarm in Israel over calls for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map, had "weakened Syria's position as a partner for peace."

Pensioner Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan, also member of the powerful security cabinet, ruled out an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights and said the visit was "further proof that Syria does not really want peace."

Any withdrawal from the Golan, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981, would see the Jewish state "find itself without peace and without the Golan," Eitan said.

During meetings in Damascus on Thursday with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Ahmadinejad openly mocked Israel, saying the Jewish state was "becoming weaker every day."

The Iranian president also held talks with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and a delegation from Hamas led by Khaled Meshaal, its exiled head in Damascus and another sworn enemy of Israel.

Assad on Tuesday told Syria's parliament after being sworn in for a second seven-year term that he wanted direct and open talks with the Jewish state.

Direct peace talks with Israel have been frozen since January 2000. Damascus demands the return of the Golan Heights.

Israel slams Iran-Syria alliance (http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=53057&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs)