Pat Dollard

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GAZA, May 22 (KUNA) — Israeli Foreign Tzipi Livni said Thursday Syria needed to “distance itself completely” from Iran, the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah party.

“Syria must also stop supporting terror – Hezbollah and Hamas – groups backed by the Islamic Republic (of Iran),” reports reaching here from Jerusalem quoted Livni as saying in statements to the press this midday ahead of meeting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner .

“The Syrians need to understand that peace talks require giving up support to terror groups,” she said, echoing U.S. statements.
The United States and Israel consider Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations because both groups oppose the Arab-Israeli peace process.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a statement Thursday affirming reports on indirect talks with Syria on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights being brokered by Turkey.

The Israeli opposition parties renewed objection to the ongoing talks that could lead to Israeli pullout from the territory.
Likud Party, chaired by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said it would convene an extraordinary meeting by its MPs Thursday to discuss the issue of talks with Syria.

Netanyahu is expected to hold a press conference ahead of the meeting to confirm opposition to withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

Television polls found 70 percent of Israelis, mainly Jewish settlers of the plateau, oppose giving back the Golan Heights to Syria, and believe that Olmert was using the talks to distract attention from the criminal investigation that could force him from office.
Olmert is taking big strategic moves that could endanger the future of the Jewish state at a time he has no public backing, Israel Radio quoted settlers as saying.

Israel captured the Golan Heights, a plateau overlooking Damascus on one side and the Sea of Galilee on another, from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem announced Wednesday in Damascus that his country could not accept anything in the peace talks but Israel full withdrawal from the strategic territory.

“This is not a precondition. It is rather a Syrian right,” he affirmed.