Hamas says Syria won't cut ties for Israel peace

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Hamas is confident Syria will not bow to Israeli pressure to cut ties with the Palestinian Islamist group to clinch a peace deal, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said.

"Israel has a tactic of trying to push Syria away from its allies and the Palestinian issue but this is a game," he told Reuters during an official visit to the United Arab Emirates.

"The Syrians have said, officially and at the top levels, that their efforts and determination to return the Golan will not come at the expense of the Palestinians or Syria's ties and contacts. We trust the Syrian position."

Israel and Syria concluded a second round of indirect peace talks on Monday and agreed to continue the negotiations over the fate of the Golan Heights in July.

Meshaal, who is based in Damascus, said Hamas was not invited to the talks.

Syria is demanding Israel return all of the water-rich plateau, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. Israeli officials have repeatedly said that a peace deal depends on Damascus distancing itself from Iran and severing ties with groups such as Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Both groups are supported by Iran and Syria, which hosts a number of Palestinian factions opposed to existing Palestinian-Israeli peace accords.

The United States has also long demanded that Damascus severe its ties to Hamas and Hezbollah, anti-Israeli groups which it regards as terrorist organizations.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has dismissed Israeli demands that the country abandon its alliance with Iran and groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as a requirement for peace.

"It is not Israel's right to set conditions for the Syrians or any Palestinian or Arab state," he said.

"A wrong and aggressive move was made to occupy Palestinian and Arab land and ... Israel can reverse this wrong move by withdrawing."

(Reporting by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Dominic Evans)