Damascus - Israel is expanding its settlement activity in the occupied Golan Heights in order to provoke and pressure Syria during possible negotiations, Syria's Tishrin government newspaper said Saturday.

The daily said Israel was working on a huge settlement expansion campaign, according to sources from Golan.

Earlier, Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to discuss Israeli readiness for a full withdrawal from Syria's Golan Heights in return for peace.

Syria's Golan Heights, inhabited now by some 15,000 Israelis, has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 war. (dpa)