Sharaa says Syria in talks with Israel on security deal

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa says his country is negotiating with Israel to reach a security agreement that would see Israel leave areas it occupied after the December overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

As Islamist-led forces toppled Assad on December 8, Israel deployed troops to the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights, which has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since an armistice that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Israel has also launched hundreds of airstrikes on targets in Syria and carried out incursions deeper into the south. Syria’s new authorities have not responded to the attacks.

“We are now in a state of negotiations and dialogue on the issue of a security agreement,” Sharaa says in an interview with state television channel Alekhbariah.

He says that Israel believed that Syria had “quit” the 1974 disengagement agreement after Assad’s fall, “even though Syria, from the first moment, expressed its commitment” to the accord.

“Now, negotiations are underway on a security agreement to return Israel to where it was before December 8,” Sharaa says.

Israel and Syria have no diplomatic relations, with the two countries technically at war since 1948.

In the interview, Sharaa reveals that Syrian forces entered secret negotiations with key Assad ally Russia during the offensive that eventually toppled the longtime ruler.

“When we reached Hama in the battle of liberation, there were negotiations between us and Russia,” Sharaa says.

When forces arrived in Homs further south, Russia “stayed away from the battle… as part of an agreement reached between us,” he says.