Syria Waits Israeli Reply on Draft for Occupied Golan

Syria has drafted a document defining potential boundaries for the occupied Golan Heights and is waiting for an Israeli reply through Turkish mediators, sources familiar with the talks said.

President Bashar al-Assad recently told Western officials that Damascus wants the Zionist entity to take a clear position on the territorial problem before agreeing to push stalled peace talks forward.

The Syrian document sets the boundaries with reference to six geographical points, the sources said. "The president was clear that Syria wants to know the Israeli view about what constitutes occupied Syrian territory before progress could be made," one of the sources noted.

"According to Syrian thinking, Israeli agreement on the six geographical points could help seal a peace deal next year. But Israel may not be able to provide a response any time soon, when it is in such political turmoil," a second source said.

The Zionist entity captured the plateau in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed it more than a decade later - a move unanimously rejected by the United Nations Security Council.

Late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad has refused to sign a deal that did not include the northeastern shore of the Lake Kinneret, a main water reservoir. The late Assad regarded the northeastern shore as an integral part of the occupied Golan and stressed that Syria was in control of it before the war broke out on June 4, 1967.

Israel captured the whole eastern shore along with the surrounding plateau in the war. The shoreline has been receding for decades. Under the Israeli proposal, Syria would have been only meters short of the northeastern shore.

A Syrian official said that the paper sent to Turkey includes reference to geographical points on the present northeastern shore of the lake. "The document puts us on the water," the official said.

Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Shara said last month that "the Syrian definition of the June 4 line means the restoration of the northeastern shore of the lake to Syria" and described Israeli arguments about the shoreline receding as invalid.