[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:
Original article in Italian:
http://espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio/Bashar-Al-Assad:-vi-offro-la-pace/2024908&ref=hpsp

Question: And if, to agree peace, Israel will ask for no more support for
Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations placed by the Americans in the black book
of terrorism, and to break with Iran?

Reply: "It would be an absurd claim and would not advance peace. How would
Israel react if we asked them to break their relations with the United
States? Negotiations must develop in respect of full reciprocity. Syria
remains firmly convinced that neither Hamas nor Hezbollah are terrorist
organizations. For the simple reason that not kill civilians. These are
movements that defend their land. As to Iran, the answer is even more
obvious. It is one of our old allies.
Translation by Google ]

'We won't cut Iran or Hizbullah ties'
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST May. 9, 2008
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627044360&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Syrian President Bashar Assad rejected Israel's demand that Syria cut its
ties with Iran and Hizbullah.

He said that detaching his country from the two was "irrelevant" to reviving
peace talks.

In an interview published Friday with the Italian magazine L'Espresso, Assad
went on to emphasize that his country was offering peace in return for the
Golan Heights - captured from Syria in 1967 and then again in 1973 after
recurrent Syrian cross-border attacks.

The Syrian president said it would be possible to advance the peace process
when the new US president was elected.

Syria maintains ties with both Hizbullah and Iran, an extremist Shi'ite
terror organization and a dominantly-Shi'ite state respectively, which both
seek Israel's destruction.