Syria threatens to take back Golan by force
By Haaretz Service Last update - 19:16 27/06/2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1095962.html

Syrian officials threatened on Saturday to take back the Golan Heights by
force if a peace agreement involving the return of the strategic plateau is
not reached with Israel, Army Radio reported.

A group calling itself the Syrian Committee for the Freedom of the Golan
said it would take steps to regain control of the territory, adding that
Israel has not shown willingness to achieve peace or to return what they
called "Syrian land."

The comments were made at the inauguration ceremony, attended by Syrian
President Bashar Assad, for a new communications center in Quneitra.

"The communications center will report on the troubles of Syrian residents
residing in the occupied Golan under barbaric and racist Israeli rule,"
Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal was quoted as saying at the
ceremony, in a reference to Druze in the Golan who wish to live under Syrian
sovereignty.

Last Sunday, Assad rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's offer to
resume peace talks between the two countries from "point zero."

Assad said the negotiations should resume from the point at which they
stopped under former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, when the two sides had
planned to formulate mutual commitments that would enable the talks to move
to a direct negotiations stage.

The indirect negotiations stopped some six months ago, following Operation
Cast Lead, and the announcement of early elections in Israel.

Israel gained control of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Syria insists that the basis for peace talks with Israel is a full
withdrawal from the territory.