Erdogan: Israel-Syria peace talks must be renewed regardless of mediator

When negotiations between Israel and Syria came to an abrupt halt last winter, they were at the stage where only "final touches" had to be made, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Damascus on Thursday. Peace talks, he said, must go on irrespective of the nationality of the mediator. "If Israel wants Turkey to go on with mediation, we are ready to go for it," Erdogan was quoted by the Syrian news agency as saying. He stressed, however, that Syria must be party to any decision made concerning negotiations with Israel. 

"It's not enough for [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu to select France or any other country as a broker," he said. Echoing hostile sentiments expressed in the wake of the cancellation of the Anatolian Eagle military drill, Erdogan said that one of Turkey's highest priorities was "solving inter-Palestinian disputes as soon as possible to reunite the Palestinians against Israel." Source:jpost.com/