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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Syrian President Bashar Assad
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| By Israel Insider staff August 15, 2007 |
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Syria announced on Tuesday that it is not interested in initiating a war with Israel, allaying fears that Syria's significant arsenal upgrade could indicate plans for attack.
"The Syrian army is trying to calm the sector down," the head of the Israeli Northern Command, Gadi Eizenkot, said during a visit with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. "Syria is taking action in the field that is designed to signal to Israel that it is not interested in escalation."
"Israel knows that we do not wish for war," Syria's deputy prime minister, Farouk Al-Shara, said at a press conference, Haaretz reported. "We will always be ready to respond to Israeli aggression, but we will not initiate war."
All of Syria's military preparations are defensive, Shara said, accusing Israel of "looking for an excuse to start a war."
"People on Syria's streets do not want war, although they will not accept anything less than Israeli withdrawal from the whole of the occupied Golan Heights. The Arab initiative is clear in this regard and we support it," Shara continued, referring to an Arab League plan that calls for Israel to withdraw from all territories captured in 1967 in return for peace.
While Syria contends that it does not intend to start a war, it continues to fund the terrorist organization Hezbollah, a group that vows to destroy Israel. Hezbollah kidnapped two soldiers last summer, provoking a month-long war.
Barak said that Israel did not want war with Syria but "we will continue to prepare in the Golan and Negev in order to be ready for anything."
Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday warned that Hezbollah had rockets that could reach any point in Israel, but qualified the remark by saying it was not a threat of war but rather "the hope to forestall it."
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