ISRAEL sent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a clear message yesterday not to expect Golan Heights to be returned to him on a “silver platter” if he continued to support Iran and its radical Islamist proxies in the region.

President Shimon Peres asked visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to deliver the message to Damascus, saying Israel was willing to start immediate, non-mediated peace negotiations with Syria, without preconditions.

Steinmeier met with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem, before heading to Damascus for talks with Assad and to Beirut to meet with with Lebanese prime minister-designate Saad Hariri the next day.

A planned stopover in the West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday was cancelled due to an unannounced, last-minute visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Jordan.

But Germany’s top diplomat instead met in Jerusalem with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who charged that the new Israeli government of hard-line Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not genuinely interested in renewing peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Peres told the German official that Israel would not allow the occupied Golan Heights to become a rocket- launching pad of the Iranian- backed, Lebanese radical Shiite Hezbollah movement. “It’s his strategic choice,” he said of Assad.

Steinmeier landed in Tel Aviv before dawn on his 14th visit to the region since taking office in 2005.

In his talks with Peres – whose duties as president are largely ceremonial – Steinmeier re-emphasised the two-State solution to the conflict and called for a resumption of peace talks. “The road to stability in the entire region leads only through talks with the Palestinian side,” he told reporters. “My personal conviction is: A guarantee for stability can only come through the realisation of the two-State solution.”

Netanyahu – who later this week completes his first 100 days in office after rising to power following elections in February in which the right- wing bloc of parties headed by his Likud won a majority of mandates – had initially refused to openly support the two-State solution.

He finally made a public endorsement of a demilitarised Palestinian State in a June 14 policy speech, following intense pressure from the US and also European leaders.

But Netanyahu has refused to accept demands for a complete freeze of construction in Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank, a demand the Palestinians have made a condition for any resumption of peace negotiations.

He has also demanded security guarantees from the international community prior to the creation of any Palestinian State, and demanded the Palestinians recognise Israel as the State of the Jewish people before a final peace deal can be signed.

“It is completely clear that a condition for all talks is Israel’s security and that of its people,” said Steinmeier, who toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial immediately after his parley with Peres.

Moderate Arab states should “contribute to this task”, he said, adding: “I believe this is the vision which also stands behind the new initiative of the American president.”

Netanyahu has also vowed to pursue a policy of “reciprocity”, insisting on Palestinian and Arab counter-steps in exchange for any Israeli “concessions”. — Sapa-DPA