RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 2 sourcesSyrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said in an interview aired Sunday that his country is working toward a security agreement with Israel, which he said could eventually pave the way for comprehensive peace between the two neighbors.
In excerpts from the interview set to air on Al Jazeera later in the day, Sharaa said that several countries are involved in the negotiations between Damascus and Jerusalem, which he said is focused on reaching an arrangement that would see the Israeli military leave the buffer zone it seized after the 2024 ouster of Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.
The two countries, which have no formal relations and are officially in a state of war, have since been engaged in several rounds of US-backed talks, and in January agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing mechanism, as well as encouraging diplomacy and commercial opportunities between them.
Talks for a wider security deal, aimed at reviving a 1974 disengagement agreement that established a UN-monitored buffer zone between Israel and Syria after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, are ongoing.
Sharaa said that he hoped such an agreement would lead to comprehensive peace talks with Israel, without Syria relinquishing its claim to the Golan Heights, which Israel captured during the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move that Syria and most countries don’t recognize.
He further told the Qatari outlet that Syria had no interest in a confrontation with Israel and was seeking to avoid one.
Turning to US President Donald Trump's repeated suggestions that Syria could intervene militarily in Israel's conflict against the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, Sharaa again said that his country had no intention of launching any such operations.
Damascus would instead look to support the Lebanese government in its attempts to disarm Hezbollah, he said, adding that his cabinet was currently discussing ways to help Beirut without military intervention.
He also declared his firm backing for Beirut to restrict weapons and decision-making power to the state, in an apparent dig at Hezbollah, which again dragged the country into war when it joined the US-Israeli war with Iran earlier this year by firing rockets and drones into northern Israel.
Trump has repeatedly pushed Syria to intervene militarily in Lebanon, saying that Israel does not know how to fight the Iran-backed terror group "without knocking buildings down,” and that "I’m close to giving it over to Syria.”
But Sharaa, who has been focused on rebuilding Syria and gaining domestic and international legitimacy since his Islamist forces ousted Assad in late 2024, has consistently rejected the idea of Syrian forces going to war against Hezbollah, a former Assad ally.
In his Sunday interview, he said that any eruption of conflict in Lebanon would necessarily impact Syria, and that any expansion of war could lead to a major regional collapse.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
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