By Salwa Astawani, IOL Correspondent

DAMASCUS, May 23 (IslamOnline.net) – The Syrian leadership and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood abroad are engaged in serious talks to bridge the gaps and turn a new leaf, the head of Syria’s Islamic Studies Center said on Saturday, May 22.

Mohammad Habash, a legislator for the Islamic current, told IslamOnline.net the current talks are setting stage for the return of broader reconciliation between both sides.

"Syria has recently made unmistakable signs, which indicated that Damascus wants to build bridges of trust with the Islamic current," he said.

Group leaders like Fathi Yakin, Kamel Sherif and Hamza Mansour have also taken part in a conference on the modernization of the religious discourse in Damascus, the lawmaker added.

"They got to know that Damascus has no problem with the Muslim Brotherhood as a religious group but it adopts a zero-tolerance with any armed opposition groups," Habash said.

Rapprochement

Hamash, who is the trusted middleman between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian authorities, said the good offices demonstrated a rapprochement between what he called the national and Islamic powers.

"Undoubtedly, the awkward U.S. policies [in the region] have made both camps feel targeted," he added.

"I think the Islamic public opinion believes that Syria wants to make peace with the Muslim Brotherhood to stand up to the U.S. scheme for the region. It is logical now that both sides would eventually integrate."

Habash further said there are no preconditions for a return of the group’s leaders from abroad.

"The main condition is that anyone who wants to develop his/her country should have a peaceful and dialogue-oriented project that respects and co-exists with the other," he said.

Syria's Muslim Brotherhood leaders abroad were not available to comment.

Damascus has been banning any political activity for the group since 1958. They locked horns with the governing Baath regime since its leader late president Hafez Assad assumed power in 1963.

Thousands of group’s members and supporters were killed in clashes with the Syrian army in 1982 in the city of Hama, central Syria, triggering a mass exodus for its leaders abroad.

But in 2004 the two sides patched up with the release of several of the group’s leaders, including high-profile officers accused of planning a coup d’etat.