Behind today's four-way summit between Syria, France, Turkey and Qatar lies Syria's ongoing talks with Israel, writes Sami Moubayed Damascenes welcomed French President Nicolas Sarkozy with French flags on all major streets in the Syrian capital. It was sweet revenge directed at US President George W Bush and Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, the Syrian way of telling the world "we have overcome". Regional and Syrian media described the visit as historic. No French president has been to Syria since the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 in 2004 (calling on the Syrians to withdraw from Lebanon) and the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri in 2005, which Chirac blamed on Syria. Franco-Syrian relations have moved quickly since Sarkozy came to power in 2007 and in July President Bashar Al-Assad visited Paris. At a press conference with his French and Lebanese counterparts in the French capital, Al-Assad announced that Syria would open diplomatic relations with Lebanon. The French president had been pushing for a Syrian embassy to open in Beirut and a Lebanese one in Damascus. The rapprochement was also aided by Syria's role in helping end the fighting in Beirut between Hizbullah and the "14 March" government coalition, its support of the agreement reached by all parties in Doha, and the election of General Michel Suleiman as president of Lebanon. All the agreements bore Syrian fingerprints. Sarkozy's two-day visit to Syria began on 3 September. Bilateral relations, the peace talks currently underway in Turkey and the situation in Lebanon are all on the agenda. He will also inaugurate a new French school in Damascus, named after Charles de Gaulle. In Paris last July Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Dardari discussed the purchase of Airbus planes from France (in defiance of the Syria Accountability Act), and in yet another sign of the thaw in relations two French cement companies have invested $1.2 billion in Syria, which subsequently appointed an ambassador to Paris, a post that had been vacant since 2005. But the real importance of Sarkozy's visit is the four-party talks scheduled in Damascus today between France, Qatar, Turkey and Syria. France holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, Syria is this year's chairman of the Arab League, and Qatar currently heads the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Explaining the Syrian position on the visit, Al-Assad said: "This is a new era between Syria and France, based on a new French policy which is pragmatic and realistic and prioritises stability in the region." Behind the four-way summit in Syria are the continuing indirect talks underway between Damascus and Tel Aviv in Turkey. However, Turkey alone cannot move both parties forward which is why the French were invited to co-sponsor the talks. The logical next step is for Syria and Israel to engage in face-to-face negotiations but without American support for the Syrian-Israeli track another partner had to be found to provide assistance and guarantees once an agreement is reached. In 2003 George W Bush announced that Syria "just had to wait" until all pending issues in the Middle East were solved before the US turned to the Syrian-Israeli track. Ariel Sharon helped convince Bush to keep the Syrians on the backburner for years. But Israel's war on Lebanon in 2006 convinced many in Washington that to get results in the Middle East the US must engage with the Syrians. The Americans did just that, though only over Iraq, insisting that Syria was more interested in a "peace process", ending the diplomatic isolation imposed on Syria since 2003, than a "peace treaty". Attitudes in Washington shifted last November when the Syrians went to the Annapolis conference despite objections by Iran and Hamas. This was followed by a summit between Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert realised that a deal with Syria would not be a simple matter of real-estate one, land in exchange for mutual signatures on a piece of paper, but could restructure the Middle East. It would directly affect Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and Iran. He pleaded Bush to support -- or at least not veto -- the Turkey talks. The no-veto stand is no longer enough for either party. Olmert needs to finalise a peace treaty with the Syrians. He knows no deal is possible with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas before Palestinian presidential elections in January, and fears that Iran will seek to make the implementation of any peace deal difficult for everybody in the region. The Iranians are unhappy with the talks in Turkey, just as they were with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's arrival in Damascus in April 2007 and the high-profile meeting between Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallim and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in May 2007. They think that any deal between Syria and Israel will be at their expense. If the American attitude does not change and a peace deal is reached (though not signed) it will probably be put aside by both the Syrians and Israelis as they await a new US administration in January 2009. And the incoming US president will in all likelihood need until March to get his domestic house in order before turning attention to the Middle East. That means a SyrianIsraeli "self-agreement" for no less than six months. Al-Assad's visit to Moscow and the support he gave to the Russian position on South Ossetia, as well as the prospects of Syria purchasing sophisticated Russian arms, were aimed at drawing Washington into a more active role in the Syrian- Israeli peace process. It came as no surprise, then, when Washington Post veteran journalist David Ignatius wrote after a visit to Syria that Al-Assad "appears ready for direct peace talks with Israel, if the United States will join France as a co-sponsor". (see p.6)
