Netanyahu said to ask Trump administration to mediate Israel-Syria peace talks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Trump administration to mediate in talks with Syria’s new government, Axios reports.

When Tom Barrack, US President Donald Trump’s Syria envoy and ambassador to Turkey, was in Israel last week, according to the report, Netanyahu indicated he wants to negotiate a new security deal as a step toward a peace agreement.

The deal would update the 1974 disengagement agreement between the countries, and would start the process of full peace.

“We want to try and move towards normalization with Syria as soon as possible,” says a senior Israeli official.

Israeli officials initially branded the government led by Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa as “terrorists” due to their jihadist past, and waged an aerial bombing campaign there. The attacks have subsided since mid-May, when Trump turned decades of US policy on its head by lifting sanctions on Syria and meeting Sharaa in Riyadh.

Syria’s new rulers have from the outset indicated that they seek calm and even eventual peace with Israel.

Israel engaged Syria’s new government indirectly at first, according to the report, then moved to direct covert meetings in third countries, two Israeli officials tell Axios.

“It is better for us that the Syrian government is close to the US and Saudi Arabia” than Turkey, a senior Israeli official tells Axios.

Israeli officials told Barrack that their red lines in Syria are no Turkish bases, no Iranian or Hezbollah presence and demilitarization of southern Syria. Israel also wants US forces in the UN force overseeing the truce between the sides.

Israeli officials believe the Sharaa government might be open to an agreement that does not include a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, says Axios.