Assad says Mideast peace in 2008 unlikely due to U.S. vote

VIENNA (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said achieving Middle East peace in 2008 looked unrealistic because the United States would be preoccupied with the presidential election.

Damascus attended a Middle East conference last month and the Annapolis meeting re-launched formal peace talks aimed at reaching agreement on Palestinian statehood by the end of 2008.

"It is perhaps too late to talk about peace in the last year of this U.S. administration. It will be preoccupied with elections," Assad said in an interview with Austrian daily Die Presse published on Wednesday.

"Annapolis was a one-day event. It will all depend on follow-up efforts. We have to be optimistic, although cautious." The United States presidential election is on November 4.

Syria said the Annapolis meeting, attended by other Arab countries, revived its bid to recover the occupied Golan Heights from Israel although there were no direct talks between the two adversaries.

Assad said Syria and Israel went 80 percent of the way towards peace in talks on a handback of the Golan in 2000, before the talks collapsed.

"Now a referee is needed. The United States above all, naturally with support from the EU and U.N.. But without the U.S., nothing will work," he was quoted as saying.

He said U.S. policy in the region, which Arabs have long regarded as misguided due to a perceived pro-Israel tilt, was changing in form although not yet in substance.

Israel captured the Golan Heights during the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.