Syria urges IDF withdrawal from buffer zone in talks with UN observers
New Damascus leadership says it’s ready to cooperate with UN force, deploy troops to Golan to adhere to 1974 agreement that created a demilitarized zone Israel has now seized

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s new authorities urged Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian territory seized in the Golan Heights following Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, during talks Wednesday with the head of a UN observer force, state media reported.
During Jean-Pierre Lacroix’s meeting with Syria’s foreign and defense ministers, “it was confirmed that Syria is ready to fully cooperate with the UN,” the SANA official news agency said.
Syria is also ready to redeploy forces to the Golan in line with a 1974 agreement establishing a buffer zone, “provided Israeli forces withdraw immediately,” SANA added.
Israel sent troops into the demilitarized buffer zone on December 8, the day Assad was toppled, originally describing the move as a temporary measure designed to prevent hostile actors from utilizing the power vacuum and taking over the strategic territory to threaten Israel.
Israel conquered most of the Golan from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War, ahead of which several Arab armies had planned an invasion of Israel. Jerusalem annexed the area in 1981, in a move only recognized by the United States. The UN-patrolled buffer zone was intended to keep Israeli and Syrian forces apart.
Forces loyal to Assad’s government had abandoned their positions in southern Syria before rebel groups even reached Damascus, leading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say there was a “vacuum on Israel’s border.”

The United Nations considers Israel’s takeover of the buffer zone a violation of the 1974 disengagement accord. Israel says the accord had fallen apart since one of the sides to it was no longer in a position to implement it.
During his visit, Lacroix was to meet observers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which monitors compliance with the deal.
In December, Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the military to “prepare to remain” in the buffer zone throughout the winter.
On Tuesday, he said troops would remain “at the top of Mount Hermon and in the security zone indefinitely to protect Golan communities, the north and all Israeli citizens.”
Mount Hermon straddles Syria and Lebanon, overlooking the Golan Heights.
“We will not allow hostile forces to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria,” he said.

After the fall of Assad’s regime, the country’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, responded to Israeli concerns and offered reassurance that the new Syrian government would not threaten the Jewish state or allow Iran to reestablish itself in Syria.
Sharaa has also asserted that Israel had a right to target Iranian-backed forces, who supported Assad and backed Hezbollah, prior to the former Syrian leader’s fall, but he contended that Israel has no legitimate basis to keep operating in Syria since the regime change.