The London-based paper quoted former Israeli justice minister Yossi Beilin as saying the Syrian leader had set a pre-condition for the meeting that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert follow commitments made by former Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, who pledged Israel would leave territories occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Beilin said opportunities to resume the Syrian-Israeli talks, halted in 2000, were discussed during a meeting between Bashar al-Assad and Yevgeny Primakov, head of Russia's Commerce and Industry Chamber and former premier and foreign minister, in Damascus in November 2007.
Beilin said he had personally informed the Israeli leadership of the Syrian president's position, but he did not disclose the government's response to the Syrian proposal.
But the official, who was a co-author of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians, called on the Israeli leadership to take Syria's proposal seriously. "It is the first time Bashar al-Assad has announced his readiness to meet with Olmert to discuss a deal on comprehensive and stable peace," Beilin said.
