The rocky mountainous plateau has been at the core of the Syrian-Israeli conflict ever since it was seized by the Jewish state in the 1967 Six-Day War.

The Golan Heights cover 1,800 square kilometres (695 square miles) of fertile land, rich in water resources, looking down on northern Israel and the road to Damascus.

The occupied part, annexed by Israel in 1981 in a move that has never been recognised by the international community, covers 1,200 square kilometres (463 square miles).

The Golan also lies on the foothills of snow-crested Mount Hermon, whose southern slopes have been under Israeli military command since the 1967 war. The army has set up a radar station at 2,224 metres (7,300 feet).

Fabled for its vineyards, the Golan shares borders with Lebanon and Jordan and stretches to the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main source of water.

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Syria tried to recover the Golan with the help of Egyptian troops but failed and even lost more territory.

But in 1974, Israeli troops evacuated the Golan's main town of Quneitra, southwest of Damascus, as part of an armistice agreement signed between the two neighbours which is monitored by UN peacekeepers.

The Syrian authorities have refused to rebuild Quneitra, dubbed the "martyr" town, as testimony to Israel's destructiveness and until the Golan Heights are "liberated" and its inhabitants allowed to return.

But the ghost town is an obligatory stop for foreign dignitaries visiting Syria, including the late Pope John Paul II who prayed there in May 2001 during a pilgrimage to holy sites in the Middle East including Jerusalem.

A leaflet issued by the Syrian culture ministry to visitors depicts Quneitra on the eve of the 1967 war as a lush town filled with fruit trees, vineyards and wheatfields.

The Golan Heights is now home to more than 15,000 Israelis who live in 33 settlements across the territory, where wine-making is a brisk business.

According to the Golan officials, 21 percent of Israel's wine production comes from the region which also accounts for 50 percent of Israel's mineral water production and 40 percent of beef production.

More than 18,000 Syrians, mostly Druze, an offshoot branch of Islam, are left from an original population of 150,000. The vast majority of these Druze have refused Israeli citizenship.

A 300-metre (990 foot) no-man's land separates the Syrian part of Quneitra from the Israeli-administered side. It comes to life occasionally when a cross-border wedding is organised among the Druze community.

In August 2004, Israel's armed forces chief General Moshe Yaalon raised for the first time the possibility of a withdrawal from the Golan Heights, drawing a storm of criticism at home.

"From the point of view of military requirements, we could reach an agreement with Syria by giving up the Golan," he said.

But the Golan Heights serve as a natural buffer for Israel, preventing land attack on the northern parts of the Jewish state, and control its main water resources.

Syria wants Israel to withdraw from the Golan up to the June 1967 line of before the outbreak of hostilities -- right down to the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

earlier related report
US welcomes Syrian-Israeli talks but stresses Palestinian track
The United States on Wednesday welcomed indirect Israeli-Syrian negotiations under Turkish auspices but said the US priority was striving for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal this year.

"We think that the expansion of the circle of peace would be a good thing. And of course it would be very, very helpful if that included an agreement with Syria," said David Welch, assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs.

"That said, President (George W.) Bush during his recent trip to the region declared that the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians offered special promises, and we are working to conclude an agreement by the end of the year on this," Welch told reporters.

"Those parties are in direct negotiations," he added. "We were kept informed."

The White House also said it had been kept abreast of the Israel-Syria indirect talks "from the beginning of the initiative."

"What we hope is that this a forum to address various concerns that we all share about Syria -- the United States, Israelis and many others -- in regards to Syria's support for Hamas and Hezbollah (and) the training and funding of terrorists that belong to those two organizations," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in a press briefing.

"We believe it could help us to further isolate Iran so that we could get to a position where they would verifiably suspend their nuclear enrichment program so that we could bring them to the table and have conversations about how we would integrate them into the international community."

Following an eight-year freeze, Israel and Syria announced on Wednesday they had resumed peace talks through Turkish mediators, with Damascus saying it had a prior Israeli commitment to return the whole of the occupied Golan Heights.

But a senior Israeli official insisted there had been no change to Israel's policy of accepting the principle of a withdrawal from the Golan as part of a peace deal without specifying the depth of any pullout at this stage.

A senior US official told reporters on the condition of anonymity that Washington had "no objection" to Syrian-Israeli talks and would encourage them, but it was not the US priority.

Countries across the region have all been urging "Bush to work hard to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians," he said.

"So in terms of our national interest, we get a bigger bang for the buck out of our investment on that (Palestinian) track. That doesn't mean we wouldn't go back to the other (Syrian) one. We have in the past," the official said.

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