Syrian FM says expects talks on a security deal with Israel to restart soon

Damascus expects negotiations with Jerusalem to resume soon, in the hope of securing a security agreement that includes Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian territory, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said in an interview with Reuters on Saturday.

After the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime in December 2024, the Israel Defense Forces gained control over a narrow strip of land east of the Syrian border in the Golan Heights as a security measure against terrorist threats.

Syria’s top diplomat said that talks over a security arrangement were halted when the war with Iran broke out on Feb. 28, and that contact with Jerusalem was cut off after the strikes on an airbase in Idlib in northwestern Syria last week.

He urged Israel to seize a “historic opportunity” while diplomacy remains open.

“We believe there should be contact, especially with a party that constantly threatens the security of Syria. But if this contact doesn’t bring results, then we don’t need it,” al-Shaibani said, adding, “We do not trust Israel currently.”

While Syria respected Israel’s security concerns, he continued, Israel must respect those of Syria, including Israel’s use of its airspace, Israeli raids and arrests in the south.

Al-Shaibani also related that earlier this year, the sides had “agreed on paper to almost everything” regarding a security deal that was tied to Israel’s withdrawal from territory seized after Assad fell.

Reuters reported that the deal would involve several security zones ⁠east of the Israeli-Syrian border, including a buffer zone where only the United Nations would be present and others zones where Syrian forces would be stationed in “varying degrees of force.”

Katz: Tom Barrack’s remarks contradict Trump’s positions

Meanwhile on Sunday, Defense Minister Israel Katz defended Israel’s airstrike in Syria, saying the IDF had recommended carrying out the operation based on intelligence and that the political leadership approved it after careful consideration.

Katz also defended his and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying, “We will not allow Turkey to establish itself in Syria and endanger Israel’s security.”

He criticized opposition figures and commentators who questioned the strike and the government’s approach toward Ankara, saying it was “fortunate that they don’t influence anything these days.”

On Saturday, Katz disclosed that Israel issued a warning to Damascus before the strike on the airbase.

“After several discussions that the prime minister and I held with the IDF and the various security agencies, it was agreed that, before authorization was granted, a direct warning would be conveyed to the Syrian regime at the highest levels in an attempt to prevent the move—and that is indeed what was done,” the minister said in a Hebrew language statement.

“At the same time, the intelligence was passed on to the relevant authorities in the United States,” he shared.

He also criticized U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Presidential Envoy for Iraq and Syria Tom Barrack over recent remarks “riddled with inaccuracies and positions that contradict those of U.S. President Trump himself regarding the status of the Golan Heights.”

On Friday night, Barrack told independent reporter Mario Nawfal that Israel occupies the Golan Heights “against the U.N. resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan [belongs to] Syria.”

During President Donald Trump’s first term, he signed a proclamation on March 25, 2019, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Tensions between Ankara and Jerusalem over Syria have been mounting ever since Assad’s removal from power.

Turkey’s Justice Minister Akin Gürlek on Friday announced on X the issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, as part of a supposed investigation into Israel’s interception of a Gaza-bound protest flotilla in spring 2026.

In response, the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem lambasted Ankara, saying that Israel “has long ceased to be impressed by Turkey’s hypocrisy.”

Erdoğan “is an antisemitic dictator who has massacred Kurds, harbors Hamas terrorists, occupies half of Cyprus, and jails record numbers of journalists and politicians who oppose him,” the PMO said in a separate statement in English.

“He now seeks to extend his aggression against Israel into Syria. Israel will not tolerate it,” the statement read.

Turkey building ‘substantial military presence’ in Syria

Also on Friday, Netanyahu’s international spokesman Doron Spielman laid out in a video message the reasons for the increased tensions of late between Jerusalem and Ankara.

Presenting a map of Syria, Spielman said that Israel has deployed troops in “one-10th of 1%” of Syrian territory adjacent to the Golan Heights border in order to protect Israeli residents from threats posed by terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and ISIS following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

By contrast, Turkey now has a “substantial military presence” in roughly 5% of territories in northwestern Syria, the spokesman said.

Israel’s position is very clear, he continued: “We will not allow Turkey to entrench itself in Syria and to be moving steadily south toward Israel’s border.”