Israel and Syria said on Wednesday they had launched indirect peace talks mediated by Turkish officials in Istanbul, the first confirmation of negotiations between the long-time enemies in eight years.
In coordinated statements, Israel and Syria said they had begun an open dialogue with the aim of a comprehensive peace.
Turkey said delegations of both countries, officially at war since Israel's creation 60 years ago, were already in Istanbul.
"It will be a very long process. The direct talks themselves have not yet started," said a senior Israeli official, an expert on relations with Syria.
There was no immediate comment from the United States, Israel's key ally.
U.S. hostility to Syria and to its allies in Iran and Lebanon has been cited as a barrier to a final deal under which Israel has said it could return the Golan Heights.
"The two sides have begun indirect talks under Turkish auspices," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement released two days before he was due to undergo further police questioning over suspected bribe-taking.
"They have decided to conduct the dialogue in a serious and continuous manner with the aim of reaching a comprehensive peace."
Syria's Foreign Ministry said the two sides would conduct the talks in a spirit of good will. Turkish officials said talks were likely to continue in rounds lasting several days, once or twice a month. Government officials in Israel said discussions on reopening dialogue with Turkish mediation had begun last year.
Olmert, one the officials said, gave Syria a "formula" on the Golan Heights "that (President Bashar al) Assad wanted", though the details remain secret. Eli Yishai, a cabinet minister and member of the Shas party, a major partner in Olmert's fragile governing coalition, responded to news of the indirect talks by cautioning against handing the strategic plateau to "the axis of evil".
Israel and Syria last held peace talks, in the United States, in 2000 but they collapsed after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on the fate of the Golan Heights, Syrian territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
A dispute over control of the shore of the Sea of Galilee, which the Golan Heights overlook, was widely seen as the main stumbling block. The territory is also close to Damascus. Olmert, who relaunched peace talks with the Palestinians six months ago, has said he is willing to discuss handing back the Golan Heights to Syria in return for Damascus severing ties with Iran and guerrilla movements hostile to Israel, notably the Palestinians of Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah.
Some 18,000 Israelis have moved to the Golan Heights and about 20,000 Druze Muslims also live there. Israel gave the Druze the option of citizenship after annexing the territory, in a move not recognised internationally, though many rejected it.
In September, Israeli warplanes bombed what U.S. officials said was a suspected North Korean-built nuclear facility in Syria. That drew no apparent retaliation from Damascus. Analysts, including former senior Israeli officials, believe there is little prospect of a peace deal between Israel and Syria without a shift in U.S. policy toward Damascus, possibly once President George W. Bush steps down in January. One view is that, aside from territory, Israel has little to offer Syria and that Damascus would move its allegiances away from Tehran only on the prospect of being embraced economically and diplomatically by the United States and its allies.
"The current U.S. administration is very hostile to the Syrian regime. Probably you still need the next administration to come to office for this effort to come near completion," said Ezzedine Choukri-Fishere, director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the International Crisis Group think tank.
"But it is a very positive development they are talking to each other at this level at this time." U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this month Washington would support Turkish-brokered talks between Israel and Syria.
Paul Salem, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment in Beirut, said: "The Americans are not obstructing it, but they are taking a wait-and-see approach."
Israeli analyst Moshe Maoz noted that opinion polls show that Olmert is deeply unpopular and that most Israelis do not want to give back the Golan, an important area for Israel in terms of water resources, tourism and border security. Adding Bush's hostility to Assad into the mix, he said: "I am sceptical on the results."
Maoz said he believed the announcement this week could have been tied to Olmert's domestic political problems and might be a a bid to "divert attention" from corruption allegations. Olmert will be questioned by police for a second time, on Friday, over suspicions he accepted bribes from an American businessman. He denies all wrongdoing.