Israel-Syria: Vows, Pledges, Calls for Peace....

On earlier Sunday, Syrian Minister of Information Mohsen Bilal told a seminar that Syria would "stand firm in the face of Israeli ambitions". President Bashar Assad declared that Damascus would stand by Lebanon's side against any Israeli "aggression."

Bilal, who dismissed Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights as "worthless", said: "We are working tirelessly towards true and lasting just peace, in which the occupation ends and the land is returned."

Israel-Syria: Will Their Tensions Lead to War in Lebanon?

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at his weekly cabinet meeting, said:

Israel aspires to reach peace with all its neighbors. We did so with Egypt and Jordan and we aspire to do so with Syria and the Palestinians. We can achieve this with two conditions: The first is that we hold negotiations without preconditions. We will not accept the notion that Israel makes major concessions in advance. We will not enter negotiations for which everything is decided in advance.

The second condition is that any agreement will safeguard Israel's security interests... Solid security arrangements will help maintain a strong peace. I hope that we are now looking at the renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians, and we are open to new talks with the Syrians as well.