ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran’s deputy foreign minister on Monday warned that Syria faces growing instability and foreign occupation as Israel escalates its military campaign and diplomatic realignments shift the regional order.
“It is quite obvious to everybody that this region is experiencing profound changes,” said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh during a panel discussion at the Sulaimani Forum.
“Now I am seeing the situation in Syria, I really would like to be optimistic, but should I be? Do we see less occupation now in Syria? The Israelis have occupied not only Golan Heights but are sitting 40 kilometers from Damascus,” he said.
Since Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in early December, Israel has ramped up efforts to destroy Syrian military stockpiles and deployed troops into a buffer zone east of the annexed Golan Heights, describing the incursion as a security measure amid ongoing instability.
“Any country under occupation cannot see development, cannot see flourishing, and cannot see peace,” Khatibzadeh stressed.
On Thursday, the United Nations issued a press release stating that Israel has also occupied at least ten positions within Syria’s territory.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has documented 44 Israeli attacks on Syrian territory since the beginning of 2025, including 37 aerial strikes and six ground assaults. These operations have destroyed around 50 sites, including weapons depots, headquarters, command centers, and vehicles.
A Riyadh-based research center chairman also expressed concern about the Israeli attacks.
“The full endorsement for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's government to continue doing what he has been doing definitely raises a question,” said Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center, who was also speaking at the panel.
“Israel has had a free rein in Syria arguably since 2017, they have been going in and out targeting Iranian assets, often targeting regime assets too,” said Dareen Khalifa, senior advisor at the International Crisis Group.
Amid escalating regional tensions, Israeli and Turkish diplomatic and security delegations met in Azerbaijan on Thursday. The meeting followed an offer from US President Donald Trump to mediate between Ankara and Tel Aviv.
According to a statement from Netanyahu’s office that day, the delegations agreed “to continue on the path of dialogue to maintain regional stability.”
During the panel, Khalifa said, “The sense is that Iran is actively trying to fuel an insurgency against Damascus and push the Kurdish forces from a deal with Damascus and peace talks with Turkey.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which control northeast Syria (Rojava), reached an agreement with Syria’s interim leadership in early April. The deal covered a prisoner swap and established a framework for joint security oversight in Aleppo, including Kurdish-majority neighborhoods previously held by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the SDF.
This agreement builds on a landmark March deal between interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi to integrate the SDF into Syria’s state institutions.
“If Iran was not in Syria, now nobody would be talking about HTS [Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham], Daesh [Islamic State] would be in power now,” Khatibzadeh said.
In late February, during the Erbil Forum, Khatibzadeh said that Iran was “the main force behind defeating ISIS.”
Iran strongly supported Assad’s regime throughout the civil war, mobilizing militias, including Hezbollah, to counter ISIS and other rebel factions. The HTS led the offensive that ousted Assad in December and formed a transitional government under Sharaa.
“The moment we saw that the central government in Syria was not interested to defend, the moment we left the country,” Khatibzadeh stated.
Kurdistan Region Interior Minister Reber Ahmed commented on the evolving landscape in Syria, saying that “there is a vacuum and the terrorists have benefited from that vacuum.”
“There is a need to have a coalition, even a local or a global one, to have a good coalition to exchange information,” he said.
The SDF has sought to prevent jihadists from reemerging in eastern Syria, but warns that its efforts are threatened by continued offensives from Turkey and allied militias in the north.
The SDF remains the primary on-ground partner of the US in the fight against ISIS in Syria.
“It is one of the main threats and challenges, not to Syria but to the security and stability all around the world, because there is a large number of foreign fighters in the camps and thousands of Iraqi families and terrorism members stay in this camp,” Ahmed said, referring to the al-Hol camp.
Al-Hol houses some 40,000 individuals linked to ISIS. Kurdish authorities have repeatedly warned that the camp poses a long-term global threat and have called for international repatriation efforts.
Barbara Leaf, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, warned of the foreign fighters present in the ranks of HTS.
“The foreign fighters that are in the big tent that formed the HTS are a problem,” said Leaf.
In late December, Syria’s transitional government issued a decree granting military ranks to several foreign nationals, including former HTS rebels. The decree was signed by interim President Sharaa.
Leaf said Sharaa “comes across as deeply pragmatic, with even a touch of moderation, certainly a political leader and not simply a militia leader or military commander.”
Sharaa has repeatedly promised to protect the rights of minorities.
“How he deals with the security dimension of challenges is going to show his real colors,” Leaf said.
