President Clinton will launch peace talks between Israel and Syria at the White House today, and continue to keep closely informed when they move to nearby Blair House.
The Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, cancelled a trip to Panama for the hand-over of the canal to the Panamanians, to be available for negotiations between the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, and the Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr Farouq al-Sharaa.
There is speculation here that the US will be asked to contribute up to $18 billion as part of any future peace agreement between Israel and Syria. This would include $10 billion to relocate some 17,000 Israeli settlers who would have to be moved from the Golan Heights. Another $8 billion would help pay for Israeli military bases to be removed from the region captured from Syria in the 1967 war.
Some Republican members of Congress are expressing unease that the Clinton administration may have pledged massive amounts of aid to Israel to secure a peace settlement without consulting Congress.
The State Department spokesman, Mr James Foley, has denied that the Clinton administration was ready to offer such large amounts of aid for a Golan Heights agreement. But he said: "We have every reason to believe that Congress would want, together with the administration, to see that the United States would do what it could to make sure that those accords were a success".
The Israeli ambassador to the US, Mr Zalman Shoval, told the Washington Times that any Israeli-Syrian peace treaty would require heavy financial outlays. But he pointed out: "On the other hand, a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty will make a tremendous contribution to the vital American interest of stability in the Middle East".