"Assad must understand that he will have to sit at the negotiations table if he wants real peace. He should not depend on mediators; he should sit at the table without any preconditions," local news service Ynet quoted Peres as saying while meeting with visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

"If he wants to promote peace for his people he will have to run negotiations without any preconditions," said Peres, who is scheduled to visit Syria and Lebanon on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the president was quoted as stressing that Syria cannot expect to retrieve the Golan Heights while keeping its ties with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and Iran, both of which Israel regards as security threats.

"Assad must make a strategic choice. There is no way that Assad will get territorial concessions from Israel while at the same time maintaining ties with Hezbollah and Iran in a package deal," said Peres.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 war, and Syria has conditioned any peace deal with Israel on the return of the strategic highland. Negotiations between the two neighbors resumed last year following years of hiatus, but have stalled again since the current Israeli government came into power earlier this year.