“A meeting took place between a Syrian official and an Israeli official on the sidelines of Sharaa’s visit to Baku,” the source told AFP, on the condition of anonymity.
The meeting discussed “the recent Israeli military presence in Syria,” according to the source, who added that Sharaa did not take part.
It also came as Washington is trying to mend ties between the two countries. On May 14, President Donald Trump called on Sharaa to normalize ties with Israel during a meeting in Riyadh hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and attended remotely by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In a statement following the meeting, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time that Trump urged Sharaa to “sign onto the Abraham Accords with Israel.”
The Abraham Accords are a series of normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries - beginning with the UAE and Bahrain in 2020 - brokered by the US during Trump’s first term in office. These accords established formal ties in areas like diplomacy, security, and trade.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Syria in an effort to destroy Damascus’s military stockpiles and prevent munitions and projectiles from falling into the hands of the new authorities, which Israeli authorities have described as “extremists.”
Israel has also sent troops across the border into a buffer zone east of the annexed Golan Heights, justifying the move as a precaution amid political instability in Syria.
In late June, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that Israel was interested in making peace and normalizing relations with Syria and Lebanon.
But Damascus responded to the initiative and said that peace with Israel was “premature,” and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Friday stressed that normalization with Israel “is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy.”
