TEL AVIV, Israel On the heels of the breakthrough inIsraeli-Palestinian peace efforts, the United States and Israel onFriday announced a new push for peace on a second front with Syria.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher will leave Israel todayfor a meeting with President Hafez Assad and other senior Syrianofficials in Damascus. Christopher is to present a set of ideasoutlined to him by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at daylongtalks here.
"The completion of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement to be signed onWednesday (by Israel and the Palestinians) will be only one step, butan important step, to facilitate the progress in the othernegotiations that are necessary to achieve a comprehensive peace,"Christopher said at a press conference with Rabin. "We now need tomake progress on the Syrian track."
Brokering peace with Syria could prove to be as complicated andpotentially more difficult than the deal with the Palestinians."We've got a lot of hard work ahead of us," Christopher acknowledged.
A senior U.S. official added: "We're not on the brink of abreakthrough. There are a lot of tough decisions that will have tobe made by both sides."
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