Syria said that it was working with the United States to reach mutual “security understandings” with Israel, which has demanded the demilitarization of the country’s south.
The announcement was part of a US- and Jordan-backed roadmap for restoring stability in the south following sectarian violence that drew Israeli intervention, and a Syrian military official told AFP that heavy weapons had been withdrawn from the area.
Syria’s foreign ministry said Damascus and Washington were working to reach security understandings with Israel as part of a roadmap for stability announced with US and Jordanian support for violence-hit Sweida province.
“The United States, in consultation with the Syrian government, will work to reach security understandings with Israel concerning southern Syria that address the legitimate security concerns of both Syria and Israel while emphasising Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the foreign ministry said in a statement outlining the roadmap.
Even a modest agreement would be a feat, the sources said, pointing to Israel’s tough stance during months of talks and Syria’s weakened position after sectarian bloodshed in its south inflamed calls for partition. Intelligence sources said Syria’s proposal aims to secure the withdrawal of Israeli troops from territory seized in recent months, to reinstate a demilitarised buffer zone agreed in a 1974 truce, and to halt Israeli air strikes and ground incursions into Syria.
The sources said talks had not addressed the status of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized in a 1967 war. A Syrian source familiar with Damascus’s position said it would be left “for the future.”
