Israel and Syria remain technically at war although both sides have recently spoken of their desire for peace.

The Syrian government has insisted that peace talks can be resumed only
on the basis of Israel returning the Golan Heights, which it seized in
1967.

Israeli authorities, for their part, have demanded that
Syria abandon its support for Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups
before any agreement.

The last peace talks between the two countries broke down in 2000.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television, Ms Shaaban said the offer had come from the Israeli prime minister.

“Olmert is ready for peace with Syria on the grounds of international
conditions, on the grounds of the return of the Golan Heights in full
to Syria,” she said. The Syrian newspaper, al-Watan, carried similar
news on its website on Wednesday.

Mr Erdogan is due to visit the Syrian capital, Damascus, this weekend
to attend the opening of the first Syrian-Turkish economic forum.

Mr Olmert’s office did not deny the Syrian reports, choosing only to state that they “refuse to comment on the matter”.

In June 2007, Israel’s deputy prime minister confirmed his government
had sent secret messages to Syria about the possibility of resuming
peace negotiations through third-parties, one of whom was widely
believed to be Turkey.

The Syrian reports also came only days after the
President Assad told the Central Committee of the Baath Party that
“friendly parties were making efforts to organise contacts between
Syria and Israel”.

“Syria is in favour of a just and lasting peace. Syria
rejects any secret negotiations or contacts with Israel. Any action
taken by Syria in this area will be revealed to the public,” he said on
Sunday.

On Thursday, Mr Olmert told Israel’s Channel 10 television that he was
interested in peace with Syria, and that both sides knew what the other
wanted.

“Very clearly we want peace with the Syrians and we are
taking all manner of actions to this end,” he said. “President Bashar
al-Assad knows precisely what our expectations are and we know his. I
won’t say more.”

The former US President, Jimmy Carter, who held talks with the Syrian
leader recently has said he believes “about 85%” of the differences
between Israel and Syria have already been resolved, including borders,
water rights, the establishment of a security zone and on the presence
of international forces.

“[Mr Assad said] the only major difference in starting
good-faith talks was that Israel insisted that there will be no public
acknowledgment that the talks were going on when Syria insisted that
the talks would not be a secret,” Mr Carter said earlier this week.

Mr Carter said it was now “just a matter of reconvening
the talks and concluding an agreement” between the neighbouring
countries.

The Syrian reports on Wednesday have sparked outrage in
the Israeli parliament, however, where several MPs said they would seek
to accelerate the passage of a bill requiring any withdrawal from the
Golan to be dependent on a referendum.

“Olmert’s readiness to withdraw from the Golan
represents an unprecedented political and national abandon,” Yuval
Steinitz of Likud told the Haaretz newspaper.

Correspondents say returning the Golan to Syria is not
a popular concept in Israel, and the details of a possible Israeli
withdrawal have bedevilled past negotiations between the two countries.