Page "Foreign relations of Syria" Paragraph 17

In December 1981, the Israeli Knesset voted to extend Israeli law to the part of the Golan Heights over which Israel retained control.

The UN Security Council subsequently passed a resolution calling on Israel to rescind this measure.

Syria participated in the Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid in October 1991.

Negotiations were conducted intermittently through the 1990s, and came very close to succeeding.

However, the parties were unable to come to an agreement due to President Bill Clinton's failure to consult with the Syrian President, Hafez al-Assad during the negotiating process, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's backtracking on the issue of the northeastern shore of Lake Tiberias and Syria's nonnegotiable demand that Israel withdraw to the positions it held on 4 June 1967.

The peace process collapsed following the outbreak of the second Palestinian ( Intifada ) uprising in September 2000, though Syria continues to call for a comprehensive settlement based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and the land-for-peace formula adopted at the 1991 Madrid conference.