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Key Dates For Assad

Following are some key dates in the career of
Syrian President Hafez Assad:
June 1 967 — A former army general, Assad serves
as defense minister during the Six-Day War, during
which Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria.
Nov. 13, 1970 — Assad seizes power in a blood-
less coup.
March 12, 1971— Parliament elects Assad president.
October 1973 — Syria and Egypt jointly launch a
surprise attack on Israel to recapture territory lost
in 1967. Syria almost regains the Golan, but Israel
I ultimately pushes Assad's forces back.
May 1974 — Israel and Syria agree to disengage
forces in the Golan; a U.N. observer force is creat-
ed to monitor the U.S.-brokered agreement.
Jan. 16, 1976 — Reacting to civil war in
I Lebanon, Assad sends forces there.
February 1979 — After Iran's Islamic Revolution,
Assad allies himself with the fundamentalist leaders
of Iran in aiding international terrorists against Israel.
March 27, 1979 — Assad condemns Egypt one
day after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signs a
peace deal with Israel.
Dec. 14, 1981 — Israel annexes the Golan Heights
1 February 1982 — Assad sends forces into the
Syrian city of Hama to crush an uprising. An esti-
mated 10,000 people are killed.
June 1982 --- Israel invades Lebanon; Syrian
troops pull back to northern and eastern Lebanon.
June 1983 — Assad expels PLO leader Yasser
Arafat from Syria. Assad also sponsors a mutiny by
PLO radicals that drives Arafat out of Lebanon.
Aug. 2, 1990 — After Iraq invades Kuwait, Assad
joins U.S. coalition against Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein.
November 1991 -- Syria attends Madrid
Conference, U.S.-sponsored peace talks with Israel.
April 1992 — Assad tells leaders of Syrian Jewry .
that he has decided to lift the decades-old restric-
tions that barred Jews from leaving the country.
October 1994 -- Details emerge about a secret ()per-
! anon in which approximately 4,000 Syrian Jews left
the country, some 1,500 of whom settled in Israel.
March 1996 — Sporadic Israeli-Syrian negotia-
; tions are halted when Assad fails to condemn a
series of terror attacks against Israel.
December 1999 — Assad agrees to resume peace
talks with Israel.
January 2000 — Israeli-Syrian talks'llr*
p *
t.:
poned indefinitely after Assad demands as a pre
condition a written Israeli commitment to with-
: drawal from the Golan.
March 26, 2000 — During a summit in Geneva,
President Clinton and Syrian President Hafez Assad
fail to find a basis for resuming Israeli-Syrian talks.
June 10, 2000 — Assad dies at the age of 69,
leaving his son Bashar as his designated heir. 0

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Peace talks with Syria are
unlikely for now.

3ED

GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

6/16

2000

22

eace talks
between Israel
and Syria,
already halted,
will probably be put into a
deep freeze, most Israeli
analysts agreed this week
following the death of
Syrian President Hafez
Assad.
"In the near future, one
cannot speak of any peace
process," said Eyal Sisser,
head of the Syrian desk at
the Diayan Research
Center at Tel Aviv
University. However, Sisser
added that in the long run,
Assad's death will con-
tribute to the peace process
because "a new leader will
be committed to change."
Syria's new leader appar-
ently will be Bashar Assad.
On Sunday, Syria's ruling
Left: Israeli newspapers proclaiming the death of Syrian President Assad,
Ba'ath Party nominated
who died June 10 at 69
Bashar to succeed his father
as president. The Syrian
Bottom: A Syrian man stands by a bus station decorated with portraits of
parliament will meet June
the late Syrian President Hafez Assad in downtown Damascus on June 11.
25 to approve the nomina-
Top right: Bashar Assad, son of Syrian President Hafez Assad is pho-
tion.
tographed in Paris Nov. 7, 1999.
Bashar, 34, was not in
line for Syria's presidency
until six years ago. He was
signed "unilateral peace deals" with Israel.
an ophthalmologist practicing in London in 1994
He told a Lebanese daily that Syria was using
when his older brother, Basil, was killed in an auto
Hezbollah fighters as a bargaining chip to pressure
accident.
Israel into withdrawing from southern Lebanon — a
Assad summoned Bashar back to Damascus and
step that Israel took last month.
began grooming him as his chosen successor.
Analysts say Bashar is unlikely to stray from the
"In the past six years, Bashar has managed to do
hard line his father set in negotiations with Israel.
what others take 16 years," said Sisser. "He has
Hafez Assad had demanded a total Israeli pullback
turned from an ophthalmologist into a division
from the Golan Heights to the June 4, 1967, lines.
commander in the special forces of the Republican
On Monday, in an interview published by the
Guard."
Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Bashar
said most Syrians think Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Echoing His Father,
Barak is either unwilling or too politically weak to
In the past two years, Bashar was responsible for the
make peace with Syria. He also said Israeli concerns
Lebanon portfolio in the Syrian government. In his
about who would have control over the eastern
first media interview last year, he echoed his father's
shore of the Sea of Galilee were "unrealistic."
line when he bitterly criticized Arab states that have
PEACE TALKS on page 24

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— Jewish Telegraphic Agency

