US official: No US involvement in Syria talks

The United States is not sending an envoy to take part in the next round of indirect Israeli-Syrian talks in Turkey, a US embassy official said Saturday night.

The official's comments came following a report in the London-based Asharq Alawsat that the next round would be supervised by a senior US official. "There are no plans to send a US envoy to the talks," the official said.

Asharq Alawsat's report was based on a "European source staying in Tel Aviv."

The paper reported that the unnamed official was in Israel to brief the government on the results of Thursday's four-way summit in Damascus between French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Erdogan said before returning to Turkey on Thursday that the fifth round of talks would be held in Turkey on September 18-19.

Since Israel and Syria began indirect talks earlier in the year, Assad has said on a number of occasions that serious steps could only be taken with direct US involvement. Washington's position has been that Syria has not altered its behavior to an extent that would warrant re-engagement with Damascus.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev, when asked whether Jerusalem knew of plans to send a US envoy to the next round of talks, said: "We have no public comment."

State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood, meanwhile, said at a press briefing in Washington on Friday that he had no knowledge of rumored plans to send Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch to the talks.

"I haven't heard anything about that at all," Wood said.

Asked whether the US would get more involved in the talks now, following the summit in Damascus that included the participation of three of the US's strategic allies, Wood said: "What we want to see out of the meeting that's taking place - and overall, what we'd like to see out of Syria - is for it to play a much more productive role in the region. It hasn't until now. We'd like to see it not meddle in the affairs of the sovereign government of Lebanon.

"If Syria is truly interested in a relationship with Israel, it should say that it is and it should work toward an eventual peace with Israel," said Wood. "I think it remains to be seen just how serious Syria is about engaging in peace discussions with Israel."

JPost.com staff contributed to this report