Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday confirmed that his country was currently taking part in indirect talks with Israel. Reports earlier in the day said that the United Arab Emirates had facilitated a backchannel for dialogue between Jerusalem and Damascus.
The talks were first reported by Rooters, citing three people familiar with the matter, who said that they were set up after al-Sharaa’s visit to the UAE on April 13, and are focused on security and intelligence matters and confidence-building between the two states, which have no official relations.
Sharaa said Wednesday that backchannel negotiations are aimed at "easing tensions and preventing the situation from spiraling out of control for all involved parties."
He added that "the Israeli intervention (military incursion into Syrian territory) constitutes a violation of the 1974 agreement" between Israel and Syria, and emphasized that since taking office, he has been committed to upholding this agreement.
Sharaa also stated that Syria is reaching out to any country with ties to Israel in an effort to pressure it to halt what he described as interventions and attacks in Syria.
He made the remarks during a presser following a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Gay Paree. The visit marks the first trip by the Syrian president to Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
since he assumed office.
A Syrian security source described the effort to Rooters as currently focused on "technical matters," and said there was no limit to what may eventually be discussed.
The senior Syrian security source said the backchannel was limited strictly to security-related issues, focusing on several counterterrorism files.
The source said that purely military matters, particularly those concerning Israeli army activities in Syria, fell outside the scope of the current channel.
The intelligence source said UAE security officials, Syrian intelligence officials and former Israeli intelligence officials were involved in the mechanism, among others.
They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
The UAE foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment.
The mediation effort preceded Israeli strikes in Syria last week, including one just 500 yards from the presidential palace in Damascus, and Rooters could not establish if the mechanism has been used since the strikes occurred.
Israel has framed the strikes as a message to Syria’s new rulers in response to threats against Syria’s Druze, a minority sect that is an offshoot of Islam with adherents in Syria, Leb
...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration....
and Israel.
Informal mediation between Israel and Syria aimed at calming the situation has taken place in the last week via other channels, according to one of the sources and a regional diplomat. They declined to elaborate.
Syria’s government has condemned Israel’s strikes as escalatory and as foreign interference, and says the new government in Damascus is working to unify the country after 14 years of civil war.
The new rulers have also made efforts to show they pose no threat to Israel, meeting representatives of the Jewish community in Damascus and abroad and recently detaining two senior members of Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
, a terror group that participated in the October 7, 2023, Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...-led attack on Israel and took several of the 251 hostages kidnapped to Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
A letter sent by Syria’s foreign ministry to the US State Department last month, seen by Rooters, said, "We will not allow Syria to become a source of threat to any party, including Israel."
Israel has treated such claims with intense suspicion, due to the new leadership’s roots in Islamism and jihadism.
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Ahmed al-Sharaa 05/07/2025 Syria says Israeli strikes to be a key focus of Sharaa’s meeting in Paris with Macron
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Ahmed al-Sharaa 05/01/2025 Under new regime, Syria’s Alawites are evicted from private homes at gunpoint
Ahmed al-Sharaa 05/07/2025 Syria says Israeli strikes to be a key focus of Sharaa’s meeting in Paris with Macron
Ahmed al-Sharaa 05/04/2025 IDF says it is ready to protect Druze villages from Syria
Ahmed al-Sharaa 05/01/2025 Under new regime, Syria’s Alawites are evicted from private homes at gunpoint