"Russia could become [the main] sponsor of the Middle East peace process and play an effective role there," Bashar al-Assad said after his meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
President Assad said that currently there were no preconditions to conclude a peace treaty with Israel, and blamed Israel for its unwillingness to hold negotiations with Damascus.
"There is a difference between a desire to achieve peace and the ability to achieve it," the president said. "There are currently no objective conditions to achieve this peace."
Assad said that along with other issues, he and the Russian leader had discussed military and technical cooperation.
"We discussed all issues, but in general terms, without details," Assad said, adding that the issue of military and technical cooperation between Russia and Syria would be discussed later by experts in greater detail.
The Syrian president also said it was impossible that weapons sold by Russia to Syria under intergovernmental contracts could have been used by Lebanon-based Hezbollah during the summer fighting with Israel.
Israel's Haaretz daily quoted intelligence sources in early August as saying that Israel's ground troop casualties in the month of fighting with Hezbollah mostly resulted from special Hezbollah antitank units using modern Russian-made RPG-29 that were sold by Moscow to the Syrians and then transferred to the organization.
"Those who circulate such information, citing data from intelligence services and data from satellites, should present real proof," Assad said. "If there was any [proof], then we would certainly have replied, but there was not."
Israel's military conflict with Lebanon-based pro-Syrian Hezbollah in northern Israel and southern Lebanon began July 12 when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and fired rockets into the country. In the month of bloodshed that ensued, around 1,500 Lebanese civilians lost their lives to Israeli bombs, and much of the country's infrastructure was destroyed.
