President Clinton and the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, said last night they would welcome Syrian moves to rein in Palestinian groups opposed to peace with Israel.
The two leaders, speaking at a news conference after two hours of talks at the White House, did not confirm reports that Syria earlier this month had urged Damascus-based radical groups to abandon their armed struggle against Israel.
But both made clear they would be pleased by such a move as Israel aims to resume peace talks with the Palestinians as well as with Syria and Lebanon following Mr Barak's election victory on May 17th on a platform of making peace with Israel's neighbours.
"We too would like to have more normal relations with Syria and we would like Syria to be reconciled to all its neighbours in the region," Mr Clinton said. "Anything that Syria does to disassociate itself from terrorism is a positive step in the right direction."
Mr Clinton said he intended to contact President Hafez al-Assad of Syria following his talks with the Israeli leader to urge the Syrian leader to seize the opportunity brought about by Mr Barak's election.
US officials declined to say how or when Mr Clinton would communicate with Mr Assad, saying only that it would be "soon".
Mr Barak, on his first visit to the US since taking office, said he could not confirm that the Syrian Vice-President, Mr Abdel-Halim Khaddam, met leading members of Palestinian radical groups in Damascus and urged them to abandon armed conflict.
"If there was such a meeting and the Syrians really asked the terror organisations to reduce their level of activity - if that is true, it is of course good news for all of us," Mr Barak said.
Mr Barak, who defeated Mr Benjamin Netanyahu largely because of his peace platform, repeated that he wanted to resume peace talks on all fronts and he expected to know in 15 months or so whether they may bear fruit.
"The road ahead may be long and arduous, but together with our peace partners we can, and will, make it happen," he said.
Mr Clinton struck a slightly more cautious note, saying that talks would not be easy: "We should have no illusions: the way ahead will be difficult, there are hard decisions to be made."
Neither Mr Clinton nor Barak would be drawn on when Israel and the Palestinians will begin socalled final status talks to decide their thorniest issues, including Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements, borders and the status of Jerusalem.
The US issued a joint statement saying that the two sudes had agreed to make an intensive effort on Middle East peace on all fronts and struck a series of other accords, including:
Plans for an Israeli astronaut as well as a payload of Israeli scientific experiments to fly on a US space shuttle mission next year.
Plans to restructure US aid to Israel so as to gradually boost annual military assistance from about $1.8 billion to about $2.4 billion over the next decade while gradually phasing out US economic aid to Israel.
Strengthening their security relationship, including the US giving Israel funding to buy an Arrow missile battery for use against ballistic missiles and expanding joint efforts to develop new technologies to combat such attacks.
Strengthening US-Israeli security ties by creating a high-level strategic planning group to report every four months.
Working with others in the region to find new sources of water. Mr Barak also pressed Mr Clinton to release Jonathan Pollard, an American who spied for Israel, from prison, but Mr Clinton made no commitment.