Middle East:Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert yesterday rejected the linkage drawn by a US advisory group between the deteriorating situation in Iraq and the unresolved conflict between Israel and its neighbours, as well as a recommendation by the group that Israel begin negotiations with Syria.
"The attempt to create a linkage between the Iraqi issue and the Mid East issue - we have a different view," the prime minister said at an annual gathering of Israeli journalists in Tel Aviv. "To the best of my knowledge, President Bush, throughout recent years, also had a different view on this." Mr Olmert was responding to recommendations by the Iraq Study Group, headed by former US secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, which called for direct negotiations between Israel and Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians.
The group believes this would help to improve the situation in Iraq. But Mr Olmert said that the Middle East "has a lot of problems that are not connected to us."
The study group also suggested that in exchange for a full peace with Syria, Israel should agree to relinquish the Golan Heights, which it captured in the 1967 war. But the Israeli leader said what interested him was not just what the Syrians "want, but what are they prepared to give".
In recent months, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has expressed a willingness to enter into peace talks with Israel, but Israeli leaders have dismissed his declarations as an attempt to curry favour with the West.
Israeli agreement to talk to Syria, Mr Olmert said, would not necessarily pry the Syrian leader away from his close ties to Iran and his support for other virulently anti-Israel groups like Hizbullah and Hamas. Syria's current behaviour, he said, especially its "subversive action in Lebanon and its support for the extremist Hamas", did not create a sense that there was "any great chance for talks in the near future". All that he had heard from Mr Bush during his visit last month to the White House, Mr Olmert said, had left him with the distinct impression that the president did not view as feasible talks "on the American-Syrian track or on the Israeli-Syrian track."
He played down fears expressed recently by defence officials that Hamas would exploit the current ceasefire in Gaza to rearm ahead of another confrontation with Israel. "We will not allow for the building of a force in Gaza that can threaten the state of Israel," adding that his government would continue to exercise restraint.
Asked about Iran's nuclear aspirations, Mr Olmert said the possibility of Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons was not just an Israeli problem. "First and foremost it is an issue for the international community," he said.
He hoped that the matter could be resolved by "negotiation, by compromise", but Israel "cannot countenance the idea of Iran having a nuclear capability".
Asked about the conflict with the Palestinians, Mr Olmert said he was prepared to do "many things" in order to restart talks with president Mahmoud Abbas.