Backing up the argument: Israel has made clear that it is prepared to compromise on the Golan and make significant territorial concessions. No withdrawal from the Golan Heights is possible without a credible guarantee of peace from Syria, accompanied by security arrangements to ensure that Syria does not again use the Golan Heights to threaten Israel. Since attacking Israel in 1973 and losing the Golan Heights, Syria has insisted that Israel completely withdraw from the Golan Heights before discussing what Syria might do in return. Syria has never agreed to make peace with Israel, even if Israel returned virtually the entire Golan. Israel has been equally adamant that it will not give up any territory without knowing what Syria is prepared to concede. Besides military security, a key to peace with Syria is the normalization of relations between the two countries, a subject over which peace talks have broken down in the past. If Syria was truly willing to make peace with Israel, it could prove it by taking steps such as closing down the headquarters of terrorist organizations operating attacks in Israel out of Damascus, closing down terrorist training bases on Syrian soil, and allowing the Lebanese to deploy their troops in Southern Lebanon, thus distancing Hizbullah from Israel’s border. Israel will only resume talks when Syria proves its intentions through acts. A failure on Syria’s part to crack down on terrorist groups and cease providing arms to Hizbullah only contributes to the impression that Syria’s calls for peace negotiations are simply designed to avoid international pressure and threats of U.S. sanctions. Syria’s claim that it cannot make peace with Israel as long as Israel does not withdraw from the Golan Heights is hardly believable, because Syria improved its relations with Turkey despite its territorial dispute with that country since 1938. In October 2005, Syria officially acknowledged that the disputed border province of Alexandretta belongs to Turkey. A recently signed trade deal between Syria and Turkey settled the almost 70 year-old dispute. Prior to that agreement, both countries claimed sovereignty over the Alexandretta province, referred to as Hatay in Turkey. The conflict started in 1938 when the Turkish army seized the disputed province. The Turks regard the province as an inseparable part of their country while the Syrians view it as a part of their homeland from before Syria’s independence from the French occupation. Syria condemned Israeli “occupation” while it continued its own occupation of Lebanon for approximately thirty years. ( See background )