The understandings, spelled out in a two-page "non-paper," talk of peace, an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 war lines and demilitarized zones.

Some eight meetings have been held in Europe and one in Israel over the past three years, Liel said.

The move he described is slightly reminiscent of the beginnings of the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo process, started by private Israeli academics with Norwegian backing. Liel said the Syrian track started when Assad visited Ankara in January 2004. Assad asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to mediate with Israel.

The Turks relayed the message to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office in Jerusalem and contacted Liel, Israel's former ambassador to Ankara, who was visiting Istanbul. Liel said he, too, relayed the message to Israel but within a few days was told: "We can't do it ... The Americans don't want us to do it."

The Turks pressed for a while, and soon gave up, but by then Liel had "a good contact" for a private Track-2 mechanism. A European government helped out, he said at the Center for Strategic Dialogue in the Netanya Academic College.

Liel, Jeff Ahronson of the Washington-based American Foundation for Peace and several other Israelis negotiated with retired engineer Abe Soliman, a Syrian who immigrated to the United States in the late 1950s and was naturalized.

Soliman has been a friend of the Assad family and both belong to the small Allawite sect, Ahronson told United Press International.

Liel said that before every meeting he informed officials he was going and upon his return submitted oral and written reports. After every round, the European mediator went to Syria and met "very very high level" officials "confirming that what we heard in the meeting is correct and confirming that the channel we are using is the channel," Liel said.

He did not identify the mediator, saying it was the man's request, but maintained he was "super professional, super responsible." But Liel did not deny reports it was the head of the Swiss Foreign Ministry's Middle East section, Nicolas Lang.

Liel said he had been invited to Damascus as "an academic" and that the European country offered him a passport, but he declined the invitation. Israeli law prohibits unauthorized travel to Syria.

The last meeting was held during the latest Lebanon war. The Syrians suggested an emergency meeting at a deputy ministerial level with an American in the room. Liel informed "more than five...not junior officials" but was told, "No, we don't want to meet them," he said.

In the talks, Syria made it clear it would not yield on its demand that Israel withdraw to the pre-1967 war lines but it was willing to be flexible on all other aspects, Liel reported.

The non-paper talks of establishing "normal, peaceful relations."

Israel acknowledges Syrian sovereignty over the Golan Heights based upon the June 4, 1967 line. Demilitarized zones will be established in the vacated areas and only a limited civil police presence will be allowed there.

Both sides will downsize their forces in the area and will cooperate in fighting "terrorism of all kinds." The United States will operate an early warning ground station atop Mt. Hermon, the document says.

Israel will control the use and disposition of the water in the Upper Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee. Syria will not interrupt or obstruct the flow and may use it for residential and fishing purposes.

The Syrians presented drawings for a park that would cover about half the Golan, will be free of permanent residents except for conservation and law enforcement officials. Israelis would be allowed to enter it without visas for one-day visits.

The document addressed some of the main issues but Israeli and Syrian officials denied or shrugged it off.

A Syrian Foreign Ministry official said it was unfounded and baseless, the official SANA news agency said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert brushed it off as, "The private initiative of a person who talked to himself." Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said Liel either did not report those meetings or "talked to someone so insignificant that it's not reporting."

The Foreign Ministry's spokesman Mark Regev confirmed Liel "told us about his meetings .... But then every month there are similar meetings with countries with which we don't have diplomatic relations."

Olmert probably opposes talks because he does not want to withdraw from the Golan. Some Israelis suspect Assad wants negotiations in order to ease international pressure on his regime, but does not really want peace.

"The Syrian government has decided to ally itself with the most violent and extreme enemies of peace," Regev said.

Of the 22 Arab League members only Syria has a strategic partnership with Iran and a formal collaborative relationship with Hezbollah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, he said. "It is very difficult to take Syria seriously as a partner in peace when that regime is a close ally and collaborates with the most violent enemies of peace in the region," he stressed.

Liel said he was sure Assad wants peace with Israel. His account suffers from the drawback of any secret back channel: It is deniable even if true. However, it may increase pressure on the government to try talks.

Reuven Merhav, who had been a senior Mossad official and then a Foreign Ministry director general, told UPI there would have been nothing to talk about if the Syrians were Shiite-Muslims. They are Sunnis and their contacts with Shiite-Iran developed out of mutual enmity towards Iraq, he noted.

Assad sees himself as the guardian of Arab interests, feels threatened, and "there is no disaster in talking," Merhav added.

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