Syria in direct, face-to-face deconfliction talks with Israel: Report
Syria and Israel have engaged in direct, face-to-face talks in recent weeks aimed at preventing another flareup along their shared border, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
The news agency cited five sources that it said wished to remain anonymous for the story.
Syria and Israel have been foes since Israel's inception, but more so since Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967, in contravention of international law. The United Nations - and much of the world, save for the US - considers the Golan illegally occupied.
The reported meetings, which build on previously confirmed backchannel talks, mark a shift for the new Syrian government under former Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Ahmed al-Sharaa. He has made overtures to Israel's western allies as he seeks foreign aid and investment to rebuild the country.
Syria's former president, Bashar al-Assad, fled to Moscow as HTS-led groups were welcomed by the public into Damascus in December.
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Reuters said that senior Syrian security official Ahmad al-Dalati, the current governor of the province of Quneitra, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, is leading the discussions.
Dalati had also recently been in charge of security in the southern province of Sweida, home to Syria's Druze minority.
There still was no knowledge of who led the talks on the Israeli side, Reuters noted, but at least two sources said that normalisation of ties between Syria and Israel wasn't necessarily on the table - rather, it was a discussion to achieve broader political understandings.
US opens up to the new Syria
In a surprise move earlier this month, US President Donald Trump announced the lifting of all sanctions on Syria during a trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Syria had been consistently under some measure of US sanctions for decades.
"I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness," Trump said to applause and a standing ovation during a speech in the Saudi capital.
"Oh, what I do for the crown prince," he said, as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, seated in the front row, crossed his arms over his chest in an expression of gratitude.
If Trump follows through on his pledge in full, it would mark the first time Syria has not been under US sanctions since 1979, when the US labelled Damascus a state sponsor of terrorism under the government of Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar.
"We are taking them all off," he added, referring to the full raft of sanctions.
"There is a new government that will hopefully succeed," Trump said. "I say good luck, Syria. Show us something special."
Trump also met with Sharaa in Riyadh and said he was impressed by the leader, a former al-Qaeda fighter who fought against US forces in Iraq.
The US president later suggested that he hoped for Israel and Syria to normalise, but it was unclear whether that was a precondition for Syria to receive the necessary waivers that would allow it to conduct business internationally.
What Sharaa has done so far, however, is arrest members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) who live in Syria. PIJ participated with Hamas in the attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
Sharaa's only public comments on Israel have been that his position is a return to the terms of a 1974 ceasefire agreement, which created a UN buffer zone in the Golan Heights. He has said that Syria will not be a threat to any of its neighbours.
Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who recently met his Syrian counterpart in Turkey, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Israel is at a critical point in discussions with Syrian officials.
"We've had conversations with them about this, what we view as an opportunity for Israel, if, in fact, Syria is stable and has in it a government that has no interest... in fighting a war," Rubio told lawmakers.
He said there have been some assurances from Damascus.
"Obviously, you have to prove it, but they have said this is a nationalist project. They are seeking to build a nation. They're not viewing themselves as a launch pad for revolution. They're not viewing themselves as a launch pad for attacks against Israel."
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