Jerusalem ? Israel had secret contacts with Syria several months ago — well before recent Syrian overtures — but they broke down after word of the meetings leaked out, Israel’s foreign minister said Sunday. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he was ready to open negotiations if Syria “stops helping terror.”

The secret meetings appeared part of an effort to restart peace talks between Israel and one of its most intractable enemies. Earlier talks broke down in 2000.

Syrian President Bashar Assad called last month for a resumption of official talks, but Israeli leaders are split over whether to take up his offer.

Sharon said Sunday that Israel would readily restart negotiations with Syria, once Syria stopped aiding and harboring terrorist groups that continue to attack Israel. The main Palestinian militant groups, as well as the Lebanese group Hezbollah, all operate on Syrian territory.

“Israel is ready and willing to negotiate once Syria, of course, stops helping terror,” Sharon told a news conference for foreign journalists.

Meanwhile, more than 100,000 Jewish settlers and their supporters demonstrated against Sharon’s recent statements that Israel would unilaterally remove some settlements from the West Bank and Gaza if no peace deal with the Palestinians was reached soon. “The uprooting of settlements tears the nation,” read one protester’s sign. “Sharon, resign — we don’t want you any more,” read another.

While peace efforts with the Palestinians remain stalled, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and some other officials had been publicly pushing the government to accept Syria’s offer to restart talks.

Shalom said Sunday that Israel had secret meetings seven or eight months ago with people “very close” to Assad.

“Unfortunately, after two meetings that the Israeli partners had with their Syrian colleagues, it leaked out. And while it was exposed, of course the Syrians didn’t continue to negotiate through this track,” he said.

A protester demonstrates at a rally in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square against possible evacuation of Jewish settlements. Sunday, thousands of people participated in the right-wing demonstration.

Shalom said he had requested an investigation into the leaks, which he said have severely damaged Israel’s ability to negotiate with its Arab neighbors.

In Damascus, an official with the information ministry denied there had been any secret contacts.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Syria’s policy remained linked to international initiatives that called on Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories and blamed Israel for the current stalemate.