US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on a visit to Syria opposed by the White House, said today President Bashar al-Assad was ready to hold peace talks with Israel.
But her remark that Israel was prepared to negotiate with Damascus prompted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office to underline the Jewish state's preconditions for such talks.
Senator Pelosi, a Democrat, is the most senior US official to visit Syria in more than two years.
Republican President George W. Bush had said her visit sent mixed signals to Syria. A spokesman for the White House National Security Council called it "counterproductive" today.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem welcomes US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Damascus today. AP Photo: Bassem Tellawi.
"We were very pleased with the reassurances we received from the president (Assad) that he was ready to resume the peace process. He was ready to engage in negotiations (for) peace with Israel," Senator Pelosi said.
"(Our) meeting with the president enabled us to communicate a message from prime minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well," the senator, the third most senior official in Washington, told reporters after talks with Mr Assad.
An Israeli government official said that was not the message Mr Olmert had asked Senator Pelosi earlier this week to convey to Mr Assad, who seeks the return of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Washington accuses Damascus of sponsoring terrorism and estimates up to 90 per cent of suicide bombers in Iraq enter from Syria. Syria says it is trying to stop the flow.
Mr Assad said Syria was ready to resume talks with Israel based on an Arab peace plan calling for Israeli withdrawal from all Arab land for peace, adopted at a summit last month.
Peace talks between Syria and Israel, centred on normal ties in return for the Golan Heights, collapsed in 2000.
AP