|
Syria doesn't want Israel war
14/08/2007 18:47 - (SA)
Damascus - Syria's vice president said on Tuesday that his country was preparing to defend itself against a war launched against it by Israel.
Speaking to journalists in Damascus, Farouk al-Sharaa said "Syria doesn't want war and Israel knows this but (Syria) is preparing for it because it knows and feels that Israel wants a pretext for a war as happened in 2006 (war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah)."
"We always have to be ready to defend against any aggression," Sharaa said.
Debate over a possible war with Syria has been a recent topic in the Israeli press, which has reported a Syrian military build up along the border in the occupied Golan Heights.
Syria's vice-president stressed that Syria "will not initiate a war" with Israel as peace has been a "strategic choice" since the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991.
The top diplomat stressed however that although peace was Syria's strategic choice, this did not mean that there were not other choices which "were never eliminated by any Syrian leadership".
Over the past year Syria has been talking of methods to regain the occupied Golan Heights from Israel.
The Syrian public did not want war but it would never accept surrender or giving up the land, Sharaa said on Tuesday.
- Sapa-dpa
- SAPA
|
News
