Brenda Gazzar , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 2, 2009
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1238562888923&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Syrian President Bashar Assad said his country would regain the Golan
Heights by "peace or war" and affirmed Syria's ties to Iran, in an interview
with a Qatari newspaper that was published on Thursday.

"The day must come and we will liberate (the Golan Heights) by peace or
war," he told the A-Sharq newspaper. "When a citizen loses hope, he walks
toward 'the resistance' in one way or another."

Resistance is a code word for violence and terror and is used to describe
groups such as Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hizbullah in
Lebanon.

Assad's remarks were printed a day after Israel's new Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman said he opposed any withdrawal from the Golan Heights in
exchange for a peace deal with Syria.

"I am very much in favor of peace with Syria, but only on one basis - peace
in return for peace," Lieberman told Channel 2, adding that there would be
"no withdrawals from the Golan during my time and hopefully not at any
time."

Syria has insisted that there would be no peace with Israel until it
returned the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967.

Supporting the right to resist Israeli occupation, Assad said that "the
enemy does not want peace and so what is the alternative or the parallel
path to the peace process? It is the resistance."

As for Hizbullah, "Israel has an issue with the Israeli enemy and we have
the same issue, and as a result we support it," he said. Because it is a
national party that has a religious agenda that includes the Lebanese
homeland, "it is natural that we would have good relations with it."

But as Western-backed Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, are trying to
lure Syria away from Iran, Assad suggested that those efforts were futile.

"How can we disengage these ties while Iran stands with us in a difficult
stage and stands with the Palestinian cause?" he asked. But Assad stressed
that his country's relationship with Teheran was not at the expense of Arab
states.

Assad also expressed his country's readiness to help Washington withdraw
from Iraq and called the start of relations with the new Obama
administration "promising." As for the new Israeli government, Assad said
there was no difference between the right and left in Israel. "The previous
government launched wars against Lebanon and massacres and I believe that
all of them are similar to one another," he said.

AP contributed to this report.