By Feras Dalatey<\/p>\n
Aug 24 (Reuters) – Syria and Israel held high-level, U.S.-mediated talks in Jordan on Sunday aimed at easing tensions following recent Israeli strikes on Syrian territory, Syria’s state news \u200cagency SANA reported, citing a diplomatic source at the foreign ministry.<\/p>\n
The talks focused on practical \u200cmechanisms to halt Israeli strikes, arrests and targeted operations, and on reviving negotiations towards a security agreement that could lay the groundwork \u200bfor a broader future accord, SANA said.<\/p>\n
The two sides also discussed efforts to ease tensions between Israel and Turkey and to prevent their rivalry from spilling onto Syrian territory.<\/p>\n
Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani told Reuters on Saturday that Damascus expected security negotiations with Israel to resume soon, although he added that there was a lack of \u200ctrust between them.<\/p>\n
Talks had been suspended \u2060since the start of the Iran war, while Syria cut off contact entirely after Israeli strikes on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase last week, according to Shaibani.<\/p>\n
Washington has for \u2060more than a year sought to broker a security agreement between Israel and the government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.<\/p>\n
Shaibani said the two sides had agreed on paper to “almost everything” around the beginning of the year, including arrangements \u200bfor security \u200bzones in southern Syria and a buffer zone where \u200bonly United Nations forces would be present, but \u200cDamascus doubted Israel’s willingness to implement the agreement.<\/p>\n
The Israeli prime minister’s office did not reply to a request for comment on Shaibani’s remarks.<\/p>\n
At Sunday’s meeting, SANA said, Syria indicated that its immediate priorities remained an Israeli withdrawal to positions held before Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow on December 8, 2024, and the full restoration of a 1974 disengagement agreement.<\/p>\n
Damascus also told the Israeli delegation it would not accept arrangements restricting its right to \u200crebuild and develop its armed forces or determine its alliances \u200band partnerships, SANA said.<\/p>\n
Syria reiterated that the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights were \u200bSyrian territory but said discussions over the \u200bregion’s final status were premature, according to the SANA report.<\/p>\n
Israel has carried out repeated \u200cstrikes on Syrian military sites since Assad’s fall, \u200bsaying its actions were necessary \u200bto protect its security. Syria has denied posing a threat to Israel and has demanded an end to Israeli strikes and incursions.<\/p>\n
Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948. Israel \u200bcaptured the Golan Heights from Syria \u200cin the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it, a move recognised by the United \u200bStates but not by most of the international community.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Feras Dalatey, Hatem Maher and \u200bYasmine Ghania; Editing by Chris Reese and Edmund Klamann)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Feras Dalatey Aug 24 (Reuters) – Syria and Israel held high-level, U.S.-mediated talks in Jordan on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[37,71967,41021,6452,95,6450],"class_list":["post-261724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-israel","tag-israeli-delegation","tag-israeli-withdrawal","tag-security-agreement","tag-syria","tag-syrian-territory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117147394699560073","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}