While Syrian-Israeli negotiations appear to have reached an impasse the prognosis for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process looks good. Andrew Album reports from Tel Aviv.

The peace process bandwagon is beginning to roll. Almost dead during Binyamin Netanyahu's tenure as prime minister in Israel, expectations have far exceeded the progress made since he was replaced by Ehud Barak last year.

The revival began in November with a summit between Barak and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat in Oslo. Although no fundamental breakthrough was made in the talks - at least as far as is public knowledge - the meeting heralded the resumption of talks on the final status issues.

This was swiftly followed by an unexpected volte face from Syrian President Hafez Al Assad. After months of inactivity on the Syrian-Israeli front, Assad agreed to face-to-face public talks between Damascus and Jerusalem. "We are renewing the negotiations from the point where they stopped [in 1996], at a senior diplomatic level," he announced.

For Ehud Barak, these are welcome developments. During the election campaign he pledged to have Israeli troops out of Lebanon within a year, but six months into his administration, he seemed to have made no progress at all on the issue.

Similarly, last September, he and Yasser Arafat agreed that final status Israeli-Palestinian negotiations would be concluded by October 2000. Most observers doubted whether this bold timetable was achievable, given how intractable some of the issues are.

Even if these two time frames are unachievable, Barak believes that there is a window of opportunity that he must climb through quickly. As far as the Israeli premier is concerned, he is more likely to conclude comprehensive agreements with the ailing Syrian and Palestinian leaders than with any likely successors. And this is in spite of the fact that the recent deaths of King Hussein of Jordan and King Hassan of Morocco have heralded new monarchs prepared to govern in a less autocratic and more pro-Western style.

Barak says that "the leaders who were there when their states were being established are the ones who can take the big decisions today. Assad is the symbol of the revolution in Syria; he moulded the state. And Arafat is also, in a way, the one who moulded his people. Therefore these leaders hold the sort of authority and perspective that allow them to make the hard decisions. A new generation leader has to take a few years to gather strength and consolidate power. Then they need to take a few years to prove that they are as tough as the previous generation, and only then can they turn their attention to other things."

Of the two fronts, the Syrian one presents the greater opportunity for a rapid settlement. Until early December, however, it also appeared to be the less likely of the two to experience a breakthrough. That was before Assad's announcement.

This was swiftly followed by the Syrian president's move to dispatch his foreign minister, Farouk Al Shara, to Washington for talks with the Israeli premier, under the aegis of US President Bill Clinton.

When the talks began, Clinton declared that "we are witnessing a new beginning in the effort to achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East." His spokesman Joe Lockhart tried to dampen the heightened sense of expectations, however, by stating that there was "certainly no expectation that they can reach a broad, wide-ranging agreement on issues that are quite difficult and long standing".

Lockhart's comments are probably wide of the mark. For three years, the Syrian-Israeli track of the peace process has been frozen. After the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Assad claimed that the two sides had agreed that Israel would fully withdraw from the Golan Heights, the strategically crucial territory that Israel captured in 1967.

Netanyahu refused to accept Assad's claim of "full peace for full withdrawal" and negotiations between the two sides broke down. Ever since, Damascus has reiterated that there would be no resumption until Israel agreed to this starting point.

Assad chose his words carefully when making his mid-December announcement. Barak, it seems, is prepared to countenance a near full withdrawal from the Golan, in return for a package of measures - security guarantees, access to water sources, full recognition of Israel and a deal with Lebanon.

After the talks opened in Washington, Sever Plotzker, a writer for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, was certainly left with the impression that Syria is prepared to meet Barak's demands. "What could be heard in Shara's statements was the full Syrian reconciliation to the existence of the state of Israel, its willingness to make unreserved peace with us, including peace with Lebanon," he wrote.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, are fearful that they will be left on the sidelines whilst the Assad-Barak rapprochement runs its course. "Without resolving the Palestinian question, there would be neither peace nor stability in the region," warned Tayeb Abdel-Rahim, an aide to Yasser Arafat.

Whilst Barak may place less emphasis on the Palestinian track whilst a deal with Damascus is concluded, there is little doubt that he remains committed to concluding a final deal with Arafat.

The problem that these negotiations will face is the wide gap between the two sides with regard to issues such as the degree of territorial compromise, the status of Jerusalem, what will happen to Jewish settlements and the Palestinian refugees. Khalil Shikaki, director of the Centre for Palestinian Research and Studies says: "If they want a shared vision of peace, both leaders will have to sell painful compromises to their people."

Shikaki noted that with regard to the key territorial issue, "the point of departure is UN security council resolution 242, which stipulates Israel must withdraw from territories it occupied". The problem is that whilst the Palestinians take this to mean that all territories captured in 1967 will be given up, the Israeli stance is that Resolution 242 only talks about some territory, rather than all territory.

Ehud Barak remains confident that Arafat accepts Israel will not agree to a 100 per cent withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. "I don't want to speak in his name but I'm sure he does accept this. Of course he won't say that. If you interview him there is no doubt he will say he wants everything, but I am convinced he understands that - if he wants an agreement. If he doesn't want an agreement, that is a different story."

Jerusalem is an equally thorny problem. Israel is adamant that the city should remain as the country's undivided capital; this stance seems to offer little to the Palestinians, who also want at least part of Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Add in the question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and what to do about the millions of Palestinian refugees who want the right of return and it is easy to see why the Israeli-Palestinian track is less straightforward.