Haaretz: Kerry & Assad working to renew peace talks with Israel

"... Kerry has met with Assad in Damascus five times over the last two years. The issue of restarting Israeli-Syrian talks was raised at all of these meetings, and a few months ago, the two began exploring practical ideas for doing so..., Kerry and Assad began drafting an unofficial position paper that would define the principles of negotiations with Israel and the conditions for restarting them.
Kerry kept Obama and his advisors informed of these discussions, in which he tried to devise wording that would be sufficiently ambiguous to satisfy both sides' political needs.
The first item dealt with a key Syrian demand - that Israel withdraw from the Golan Heights. The wording of this clause was similar to that used during the Israeli-Syrian talks conducted by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: It stated that the basis for the talks would be the principle of land for peace, in accordance with the 1991 Madrid Conference and UN resolutions on the subject.
Kerry also tried to draft a clause to satisfy one of Israel's key demands - that any peace agreement lead to Syria severing its ties with Iran and Hezbollah.
A European diplomat briefed on the Kerry-Assad talks said that Assad had expressed willingness to discuss "Syria's strategic positioning and regional security issues" in negotiations with Israel. That formulation is vague...."