Israel says it's willing to postpone the next round of peace talks, due to begin in the United States on Wednesday, if Syria isn't ready to attend.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, said if Syria needed more time, it should take it.

Syria said yesterday that it hadn't yet made a decision on whether to attend the talks.

However, a senior American official, James Foley, said the United States still expected the talks to begin on Wednesday as planned. The Syrian-Israeli talks resumed last month, nearly four years after they were broken off.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service