Syrian President Bashar Assad proposed to visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy a secret six-point plan for peace with Israel while making it clear he backs Hizbullah. At the same time, the terrorist party's leader Hassan Nasrallah exclaimed that he is a war with Israel.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert previously has stated that peace with Syria depends on Assad's breaking ties with Hizbullah and Iran.
The flurry of statements came as French President Sarkozy met with Syria, Turkey and Qatar to discuss regional peace.
Assad did not reveal the points of his plan but previously has said that direct talks with Israel must be conditioned on Israel's giving up the strategic Golan Heights. He said he will wait for Israel to submit its own peace plan before deciding on whether to proceed with direct negotiations.
Sarkozy is the first Western leader to visit Damascus in several years and is promoting direct talks between Syria and Israel. Turkey has been mediating indirect discussions between Syria and Israel. The fifth round of talks, originally scheduled for Sunday, has been postponed by Assad, ostensibly because of the cloudy political situation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"We don't see any interest in abandoning the resistance," Assad told the Hizbullah-backed Al-Manar television network. "Our position has always been clear. Our position toward the resistance against any occupation in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine is firm and has not changed."
While Assad is touting peace with Jerusalem and reaffirming ties with Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hizbullah, stated, "We are a threatened country, and Israel aspires to control us and threatens Lebanon. My hostility towards Israel is the greatest possible hostility."
Nasrallah also raised the issue of recovering the bodies of Hizbullah terrorists who were killed during the Second Lebanon War. "We will not give up on any of those resistance activists who were killed," he said.
Nasrallah also dismissed statements this week by Defense Minister Ehud Barak that the IDF is being restructured into a winning army." The Hizbullah leader said, "Barak spoke clearly of the Israeli option for the next stage. They know their navy is weak, and that their air force has exhausted all of its options, and it cannot gain a military advantage in the next war."