Syria is committed to seeking peace with Israel but has no faith in the present Israeli government, President Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday.

"We are faced with an enemy that has shown until this day that it understands nothing but the language of force, and it seems that peace in the region is not in the horizon," Assad said in an interview in Arabic with the Hezbollah-run Al-Manar television late Wednesday.

Israel and Syria in 2008 launched Turkish-mediated indirect peace talks which failed at the end of that year when Israel launched a devastating military offensive in Gaza.

Up to 1500 Palestinians were killed in the offensive.

His statement came amid heightened tension in the region and concern in Lebanon over recent Israeli threats against Hezbollah.

Assad said the current tension, which he described as a "state of no-war, no-peace," would inevitably lead to either war or peace.

"Do we have any hope in the Israeli government? No. But we do believe that Israel is left with no choice but peace," he said.

"But when war is imposed on you, you wage that war irrespective of the balance of power," he added.

Syrian foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said last month Israel was "behaving like thugs" and planting the seeds of a war in the Middle East.

Moualem was responding to remarks by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak raising the spectre of an "all out war" with Syria if peace were not achieved between the two foes.

In December 2009, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman refuses indirect talks with Syria through Turkish mediation, calling instead for direct talks, to be held in Damascus and Jerusalem.

Earlier this month, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel was moving towards again accepting Turkey as a mediator to restart the stalled peace talks.


Agencies