Olmert: 'The Syrians know what we want and we know what they want'

By JPOST.COM STAFF
"The Syrians know what we want and we know what they want," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday, the day after the opening of diplomatic negotiations with Damascus were announced. Speaking to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Jerusalem, Olmert said that Israel intends to conduct negotiations on both the Syrian and Palestinian tracks, with neither coming at the expense of the other.  The prime minister made it clear that Israel aspires to reach peace with the Palestinians in the coming year and added that both his talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on this issue and the talks between the heads of the negotiating teams - Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and PA negotiator Ahmad Qurei - were "serious and important."