Syria tells Pelosi it's ready for peace talks

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on a visit to Syria opposed by the White House, said on Wednesday 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.

Democrat Pelosi is the most senior U.S. 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" on Wednesday.

"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," 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," Pelosi, the third most senior official in Washington, told reporters after talks with Assad.

An Israeli government official said that was not the message Olmert had asked Pelosi earlier this week to convey to Assad, who seeks the return of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

"The prime minister said Israel is interested in peace with Syria, but Syria would first have to abandon the path of terror and providing support for terrorist groups," the official said, in reference to Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah.