Syria to revive security talks with Israel

Shafaq News- Damascus

Syria expects security negotiations with Israel to resume soon despite “deep mistrust,” Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani said, tying progress to an end to Israeli attacks and withdrawal from Syrian territory seized after former President Bashar Al-Assad’s fall.

Al-Shaibani told Reuters on Saturday that the two sides had agreed “on paper to almost everything” around the beginning of the year, but Damascus saw no genuine Israeli willingness to implement the proposed arrangement. The deal would include several security zones near the Israeli border, including a UN-only buffer area and others allowing varying levels of Syrian military deployment.

Negotiations were “frozen” after the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28, while contact stopped following Israel’s August 18 strike on the Abu Al-Duhur airbase, which Israel claimed was aimed at preventing Syria from allowing Turkish forces to deploy at the facility –an allegation denied by Damascus and Ankara. No date has been set for renewed talks.

Read more: Israel: Secret channels with Turkiye to prevent Syria clash

Washington has sought for more than a year to broker a security agreement between Syria and Israel. According to US Envoy Tom Barrack, Washington was also working on a deconfliction mechanism among Israel, Turkiye, and Syria to prevent further escalation, but Al-Shaibani said no agreement had yet been reached. He argued that the mechanism should halt attacks and pave the way for a broader security deal rather than entrench Israeli control.

Israeli forces entered the UN-monitored separation area and other parts of southwestern Syria after Al-Assad’s government fell in December 2024. The 1974 disengagement agreement established an area of separation monitored by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), where no Israeli or Syrian forces are permitted.