Syria dismissed yesterday as a "media manoeuvre" an Israeli invitation to President Bashar Al Assad to visit Jerusalem for peace talks, saying only a resumption of previous negotiations would achieve peace. "Partial solutions and media maneuvres do not achieve peace in the region... Syria's longstanding position is to resume negotiations from where they stopped," the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said. "What we need is a serious response, this is not a serious response," Syria's Expatriates Minister Buthaina Shaaban told CNN. "A serious response is to say, 'Yes, we are interested in peace, we want to... resume negotiations where they stopped, with the co-sponsorship of the US, as it was in Madrid.' That would be a serious response," she said. Israeli President Moshe Katsav yesterday invited Assad to visit Jerusalem for "serious negotiations" with Israeli leaders. "The proposed mechanism for peace is negotiations," SANA said. "Visits or initiatives are not the problem. This talk is an escape from the peace process because making peace through Madrid (peace conference) and international resolutions is the only way that can achieve security and stability for the Middle East." Syrian officials have repeatedly said any peace talks should be based on the outcome of the 1991 Middle East peace conference, the land-for-peace formula and relevant UN Security Council resolutions. Israel has said it would resume talks with Syria without any pre-conditions. The US-sponsored Israeli-Syrian negotiations in Shepherdstown, West Virginia ended four years ago without any agreement on the future of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights overlooking the Sea of Galilee, Israel's biggest reservoir. Officials have said the two sides, still technically at war, were divided only over the issue of control of a narrow strip of land at water's edge. Israel was ruled by a centre-left government at the time. The resumption of talks from the point reached in 2000 would effectively force Sharon to agree, even before sitting down at the negotiating table, to a pullout from almost all of the Golan Heights. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Bashar Al Assad.