A former U.S. envoy and Mideast negotiator called Thursday for peace talks in which Israel would yield the Golan Heights to Syria in return for a peace treaty and withdrawal of support for Hezbollah militants.

Martin Indyk, ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, told the House Mideast subcommittee that Israel had enlisted Turkey to help register its interest in peace negotiations to Syria.

But Indyk, who was a U.S. negotiator during former President Clinton's efforts in 2000 to mediate an agreement, said, "Syria will not sit down with Israel without the United States in the room."

Acknowledging Israel had expressed interest in talks, Syrian President Bashar Assad told Qatar's al-Watan newspaper in Damascus that the United States was the only party qualified to sponsor direct negotiations between Israel and Syria.

The Bush administration "does not have the vision or will for the peace process," Assad said. "It does not have anything."

Assad confirmed, however, that Israel has expressed willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights. But he said direct talks would not begin before a new U.S. administration took office.

The Clinton-era talks collapsed even though Israel agreed to relinquish the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau it captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israel agreed to withdrawal from all but a small strip of land alongside vital water resources in the Sea of Galilee.

Indyk said if negotiations were resumed with the onset of a new U.S. administration the United States should insist that Syria cease its support for Hezbollah, a militant group that has fought a cross-border conflict with Israel from strongholds in southern Lebanon, and on Lebanon's independence from Syrian influence.

Another witness, Peter Rodman, a former Pentagon, White House and State Department official over several decades, said he was "very skeptical of taking the bait" of Syrian peace talks with Israel.

Syria would resist giving up its large role in the region, including strong ties with Iran, because that would reduce it to "just an average country," Rodman said.

Now with the Brookings Institution, a private think tank, Rodman said the main problems with Syria lately have been its role and actions in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Palestinian diplomacy and in the nuclear area.

Syria is backing Iraqi extremists that are killing Americans, he said.

The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., said U.S. engagement with Syria is not synonymous with capitulation.

"A peaceful Middle East may, or may not, be possible, but cannot be achieved solely by holding our breath, demanding obedience or sending in the Marines," he said.

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