President says Syria in talks with Israel on security deal

DAMASCUS, Syria: President Ahmed al-Sharaa said Friday that Syria was negotiating with Israel to reach a security agreement that would see Israel leave areas it occupied after the December overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

As Islamist-led forces toppled Assad on December 8, Israel deployed troops to the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights which has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since an armistice that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Israel has also launched hundreds of air strikes on targets in Syria and carried out incursions deeper into the south. Syria’s new authorities have not responded to the attacks.

“We are now in a state of negotiations and dialogue on the issue of a security agreement,” Sharaa said in an interview with state television channel Alekhbariah.

He said that Israel believed that Syria had “quit” the 1974 disengagement agreement after Assad’s fall, “even though Syria, from the first moment, expressed its commitment” to the accord.

“Now, negotiations are underway on a security agreement to return Israel to where it was before December 8,” Sharaa said.

Israel and Syria have no diplomatic relations, with the two countries technically at war since 1948.

Last month, Syrian state media said Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer had met in Paris to discuss de-escalation and the situation in Druze-majority Sweida province after deadly sectarian violence.

Also last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel was holding talks aimed at the demilitarisation of southern Syria.

In the interview, Sharaa revealed that Syrian forces entered secret negotiations with key Assad ally Russia during the offensive that eventually toppled the longtime ruler.

“When we reached Hama in the battle of liberation, there were negotiations between us and Russia,” Sharaa said.

When forces arrived in Homs further south, Russia “stayed away from the battle… as part of an agreement reached between us”, he said.

Sharaa also noted how his forces avoided attacking Russia’s Hmeimim air base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

Russia’s naval base in Tartus and its air base at Hmeimim are Moscow’s only official military outposts outside the former Soviet Union.

Assad fled to Russia from Hmeimim.