Israel must sit down and talk with Syria to resolve differences and work for peace, according to the U.S. State Department. The assertion came in response to recent statements by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that the Israeli government cannot sit down with a government that backs Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood, in response to a reporter’s question, declared, “Obviously, at some point, the two parties need to sit down and resolve their differences. There needs to be peace between Israel and Syria. The question on when talks go forward, that’s going to really be up to the parties. We want to see that happen. In terms of when they sit down actually, that’s something that’s going to have to be worked out."
Two days earlier, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem praised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the Durban II conference on racism. "A large proportion of public opinion in the Arab world supports the words of the Iranian president," Muallem stated in a press conference.
He added that Arabs “should not be turned into victims of a Holocaust which they did not commit. It should not serve as a pretext for the Israelis to commit a Holocaust in Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon."
In his speech last week at the opening of the partially-boycotted Durban II conference in Geneva, Ahmadinejad labeled the Israeli government "the most cruel and repressive racist regime." He criticized the creation of a "totally racist government" and accused the Western world of ”sending migrants from Europe and the United States in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine."
The United States, Canada, Germany, Holland, Australia, New Zealand and Italy were among the list of countries who boycotted the entire Durban II conference.
Twenty-three European Union delegations, as well as that of Morocco, walked out in protest the speech, but all other delegates, including U.N. secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, remained in their seats.