Sharaa Confirms Syria is in Direct Talks with Israel

In a wide-ranging interview with the Washington Post, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa charged that Israel has broken a decades-old disengagement deal, accusing it of launching widespread airstrikes and seizing new territory inside Syria.

“Syria got into war with Israel 50 years ago. Then, in 1974, there was a disengagement agreement,” al-Sharaa told the paper following his historic visit to the White House and meeting with President Trump. “This agreement lasted for 50 years. But when the [Assad] regime fell, Israel revoked this agreement. They expanded their presence in Syria, expelled the UN [peacekeeping] mission and occupied new territory.”

The Syrian leader claimed that Israel’s military has intensified operations in the country since his rebel group, the Nusra Front, toppled the Assad government last December. According to al-Sharaa, Israeli jets have conducted more than 1,000 strikes since December 8, hitting the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Defense among other strategic sites. “But because we want to rebuild Syria, we didn’t respond to these aggressions,” he said.

Rejecting Israel’s explanations that the strikes were motivated by security concerns, al-Sharaa asserted that the true goal is territorial expansion. “Israel has always claimed that it has concerns about Syria because it is afraid of the threats that the Iranian militias and [Lebanon’s] Hezbollah represent. We are the ones who expelled those forces out of Syria,” he declared.

In a surprising revelation, the Syrian president confirmed that direct talks are underway between Damascus and Jerusalem, facilitated by Washington and other international intermediaries. “We have gone a good distance on the way to reach an agreement. But to reach a final agreement, Israel should withdraw to their pre-Dec. 8 borders,” al-Sharaa told the Washington Post. “Today, we found that Mr. Trump supports our perspective as well, and he will push as quickly as possible in order to reach a solution for this.”

When asked about the possibility of establishing a demilitarized zone south of Damascus, al-Sharaa rejected the idea outright. “To talk about an entire region demilitarized, it will be difficult, because if there is any kind of chaos, who will protect it? If this demilitarized zone was used by some parties as a launching pad for hitting Israel, who is going to be responsible for that?” he asked. He insisted, “At the end of the day, this is Syrian territory, and Syria should have the freedom of dealing with their own territory.”

In a separate interview with Fox News, broadcast Monday, al-Sharaa addressed the notion of Syria joining the Abraham Accords but spoke cautiously. He declined to state whether his country would recognize Israel’s right to exist, saying only, “Syria has borders with Israel, and Israel occupies the Golan Heights since 1967. We are not going to enter into a negotiation directly right now. Maybe the United States administration, with President Trump, will help us reach this kind of negotiation.”

Just two months earlier, al-Sharaa had told journalists in Damascus that negotiations over a security pact with Israel could soon bear fruit. At that time, he hinted that if the pact succeeded, it might pave the way for “additional agreements,” though he emphasized that “normalization or peace” with Israel was not currently being discussed.

{Matzav.com}