MELISSA BLOCK, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
More now on the Mideast peace conference. Syria sent a deputy foreign minister to Annapolis. According to various blogs and news accounts, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey and Egypt all called Syria's foreign minister, urging his country to attend. Iran's president called, urging Syria not to attend. Damascus chose to attend at neither the ministerial level nor the ambassadorial level, but somewhere in between.
Edward Djerejian is a former U.S. ambassador to Syria and to Israel, as well as former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs. He's now at Rice University. And I asked Ambassador Djerejian what does Syria's presence at that cautiously calibrated level signifies.
Mr. EDWARD DJEREJIAN (Director, James Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University; Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria and to Israel): First, it signifies that Syria attaches a great deal of importance to its priority, national security objective, and that is the return of the Golan Heights in any comprehensive peace agreement with Israel. Secondly, Syria is very much interested in being a regional player. And being part of the Arab-Israeli peace process is one way of getting the attention, especially of the United States, to perhaps build up a relationship that has been badly broken in recent years.
SIEGEL: One American interest here seems to be to try to attempt to woo Syria away from Iran a little bit. How important to Syria is that relationship?
Mr. DJEREJIAN: Well, that is an important relationship. It wasn't started with the current president, Bashar al-Assad; it was started by his father, Hafez al-Assad, who built the Syrian-Iranian relationship basically to offset Saddam Hussein because of the rivalry between Damascus and Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime. It has been continued and actually solidified under Bashar al-Assad in a very uneasy way for, I think, for the United States and other parties in the region because the relationship has become much too close for comfort between Syria and Iran and for many of the neighbors in the region and for us. But it is promising that Syria has agreed to be represented in Annapolis, be it at a deputy foreign minister level.
SIEGEL: You say it's promising that Syria is here. Can people make good on any of those promises without Syria seeing that it's going to get the Golan Heights back, period?
Mr. DJEREJIAN: I think one of the reasons that Walid Muallem, the foreign minister, is not in Annapolis today is because the Syrians do not feel that they have that level of commitment on the part especially of the United States for the Golan Heights issue to be addressed in a direct way. The priority is obviously the Israeli-Palestinian talks. So Syria is ready to engage seriously if the Golan Heights is given, in their eyes, the due attention on the agenda.
SIEGEL: Thinking back to the days just after the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, back then when Israel's Shimon Peres and some others talked about achieving peace, normalization and commerce with Syria, Damascus seemed to be frightened of all that. They seemed to think they heard the Israelis talking about becoming an economic hegemon in the region and coming in and buying up Syria. Is Syria really interested in a very open integrated relationship with Israel?
Mr. DJEREJIAN: You've got a good memory. That is exactly the doubts that the former president of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, had that he - I know when I was ambassador to Damascus, he would tell me, Israel is not truly interested in a land for peace that wants peace for peace. It wants to be the economic hegemon in the region, but it doesn't want to make the hard decisions to return territory for peace. He said Syria will not buy off on that. It has to be land for peace. And after that major deal is struck, then normalization will follow. I think that remains the Syrian position.
SIEGEL: Edward Djerejian, thank you very much for talking with us.
Mr. DJEREJIAN: It's a pleasure be with you.
SIEGEL: That's retired ambassador Edward Djerejian speaking to us from Rice University in Houston, where he's the director of the James Baker Institute.
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