Israel pushing Middle East to war: Syria's Assad

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria accused Israel on Wednesday of pushing the Middle East toward a new war.

"All the facts point that Israel is driving the region toward war, not peace," the official Syrian news agency quoted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as saying during a meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

"Israel is not serious about wanting peace," he added.

Moratinos, recently returned from a visit to Israel, said the Jewish state did not appear to want war.

"I came from Israel. I didn't hear any noise of drums of war. I heard drums of peace," he said.

During a subsequent news conference with Moratinos, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said Israel "was planting the seeds of the war atmosphere" by threatening attacks on Iran, Lebanon and the Gaza strip.

"I tell them (Israel), stop acting like thugs," Moualem told reporters in the Syrian capital Damascus.

Indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel, mediated by Turkey, broke down during the Israeli invasion of Gaza in December 2008.

Syria has sought to resume the talks as the confrontation between its ally Iran and the West and Israel over Tehran's nuclear activities escalated.

Syrian officials have made it clear that Syria preferred not to be drawn into any military confrontation involving Iran if Israel attacked Iran's nuclear installations.

"Do not test the resolve of Syria, you Israelis, you know that war this time will reach your cities. Go back to your senses and seek the road of peace," Moualem said.

Damascus wants an Israeli commitment to withdraw from the whole of the Golan Heights, the Syrian plateau that Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East War. Israel has said it was willing to resume the talks with Syria without preconditions.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis; editing by Philippa Fletcher)