U.S. to offer Assad a 'Gaddafi deal'

from a Report on YNet News, by Roee Nahmias 15/10/2005...

The Times says Bush Administration offers Assad deal to end his regime’s isolation if Damascus agrees to a long list of painful concessions, including full cooperation with investigation into Hariri assassination; cease support for terrorist Islamic organizations such as Hizbullah and Palestinian groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad

The Bush Administration has offered Syria’s beleaguered President a “Gaddafi deal” to end his regime’s isolation if Damascus agrees to a long list of painful concessions, a senior American official told The Times.

According to the report, the U.S. will present four demands from Syria: Syria would have to fully cooperate with the U.N. team investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. ... Full Story

Secondly, if members of the Syrian regime are named as suspects they would have to be questioned and could stand trial under foreign jurisdiction. The Syrians would also have to stop any interference in Lebanon, where they have been blamed for a series of bomb attacks against their critics, most recently May Chidiac, a television presenter who was badly injured last month when a device exploded under her car.

Washington also wants Syria to halt the recruiting, funding and training of volunteers for the Iraqi insurgency, which they claim are openly operating in Syria with the connivance of the regime. They include former members of the Iraqi regime and foreign volunteers responsible for suicide car-bomb attacks.

The Bush Administration also has a long-standing demand that Syria cease its support for terrorist Islamic organizations such as Lebanon’s Hizbullah and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

In return America would establish full and friendly relations with Damascus, opening the way for foreign aid and investment and ensuring the regime’s survival.

The Americans are convinced that if Syria agrees to the aforementioned terms it may transform the whole climate in the Middle East - freeing Lebanon, dealing a serious blow to the insurgency in Iraq, and opening the way for progress between Israel and Palestine.

The precedent for the offer is the deal clinched two years ago with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. ...Full relations were restored after Washington and London concluded a secret deal with Gadaffi to dismantle and turn over all his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs...