Ahlul Bayt News Agency ; French President Nicolas Sarkozy's emissary Jean-Claude Cousseran will visit Damascus in the coming days, where he will meet with Syrian officials and discuss the resumption of peace talks with Israel, Lebanese daily as-Safir reported Friday.
According to the report, Cousseran will arrive in Damascus early next week and meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem.
According to the report, Cousseran's primary mission will be to determine Syria's position on renewing negotiations with Israel. In addition, the envoy is planning to assess how feasible it would be to encourage the United States to pressure Israel into entering talks.
According to estimates, France will seek the aid of the Turkish mediator from the latest round of talks between Tel Aviv and Damascus, at least at first.
The Lebanese daily reported that should the efforts bear fruit, the main sponsor of the talks would be the United States. In the meantime, however, the American administration is focusing on the Palestinian channel, letting France operate on the Syrian channel.
As-Safir added that US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell would arrive in Damascus next week to brief the Syrians on the direct talks launched between Israel and the Palestinians in Washington and ask for their support.
According to the report, Mitchell will stress the American administration's commitment to restart the process on the Syrian channel. The author of the A-Safir report voiced skepticism regarding the U.S.'s eagerness to act on the Israel-Syria track, since most of the U.S. efforts are currently focused on the Israel-Palestinian talks.
Sources in Damascus told the newspaper that they did not expect "effective efforts" on this channel before the US Congress elections in November.
Cousseran was in the Zionist entity earlier this week where he met with senior Israeli Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry officials. He returned to France on Wednesday.
Indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel scheduled to occur in Washington in late May were canceled as a consequence of the Israeli raid of the Turkish flotilla ship the Mavi Marmara, in which nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told CNN that he was supposed to have met Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington to facilitate discussions with Syria, a move which had been approved by Damascus.
Israel and Syria held four indirect rounds of peace talks with Turkish mediation in 2008. Syria has said it would only continue indirect talks with Israel from the point where they left off before Israel, under the premiership of Ehud Olmert, launched a three-week offensive against the Gaza Strip in December 2008 in which more than 1400 Palestinians killed, including 420 children and over 5300 others were injured.
Arab media outlets in recent days have reported that French and European diplomats are disappointed that the U.S. government pushed them aside in the renewal of the Israel-Palestinian peace talks even though the EU is thought of as the largest contributor and supporter of the Palestinian Authority.
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