A meeting between Syrian and Israeli officials took place on Saturday in Baku, on the sidelines of interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Shareh’s visit to Azerbaijan, a diplomatic source in Damascus familiar with the talks between the two neighboring countries said.
In May, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that, following his meeting with the Syrian leader, al-Shareh had expressed willingness to comply with Washington’s request for normalization with Israel – a country Syria has officially been at war with since 1948.
“A meeting was held between a Syrian official and an Israeli official on the sidelines of Al-Shareh’s visit to Baku,” the diplomatic source said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. The source clarified that President Al-Shareh did not attend the meeting.
According to the same source, discussions focused on “the recent Israeli military presence in Syria,” referring to areas where Israeli forces have been deployed since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December.
The diplomatic source did not disclose the identity of the two officials, and neither Israel nor Syria has issued an official comment at this stage.
After a coalition of Islamist groups took power in Damascus last December, ending a devastating 13-year war, Al-Shareh stated that Syria had no desire to enter into conflict with its neighbors.
Earlier in July, Syria also declared its readiness to cooperate with the United States to return to a 1974 security agreement with Israel.
Since December, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria and deployed its forces into the demilitarized buffer zone of the Golan Heights – in violation of the agreement, according to the United Nations.
Damascus has not responded militarily and has acknowledged conducting indirect talks with Israel aimed at reducing tensions with its neighbor.
The U.S. envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, recently stated that Al-Shareh had told him he wanted “peace” along the border.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in late June that his country was “interested” in normalizing relations with Syria, while stressing that Israel had no intention of returning the part of the Syrian Golan it captured in 1967 and annexed in 1981.
Syrian officials later stated that talks of signing a peace agreement with Israel were “premature.”
AFP
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