Israel has reportedly presented Syria with a detailed proposal for a new security agreement regarding southwest Syria, with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer set to meet Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in London on Wednesday to discuss it.
Syria said Tuesday that it was working with the United States to reach mutual "security understandings" with Israel.
According to a Tuesday evening Axios report, which cited two officials familiar with the details, Dermer and al-Shaibani will be joined by US envoy Tom Barrack to discuss the draft that Israel submitted several weeks ago. The report said that Damascus has not responded to the proposal, but was formulating a counter-offer.
The meeting would be the third trilateral summit, but while sources familiar with the discussions said there were signs of progress, it was thought that a breakthrough was not imminent, and the report described the Israeli demands as "maximalist."
According to Axios, Israel wants a no-fly zone and demilitarized zone over its border in Syria, with no limits on Israeli deployment on its own territory.
The officials were cited as saying that the Israeli proposal is based on its 1979 agreement with Egypt, which divided the Sinai into three zones, each with its own limits on forces. The limits are strictest in the areas closest to Israel’s border.
The report said the proposal would see the buffer zone in Syria extended by a further two kilometers (1.2 miles).
According to the proposal, the area next to the border would have no Syrian military forces, but police and domestic security forces would be allowed.
Syrian aircraft would be banned from flying over the territory between Damascus and the Israeli border.
A source told Axios that Israel wants to maintain an air corridor, apparently so that it could more easily strike Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for
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militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
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Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
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if needed in the future.
In return, Israel would withdraw in stages from the buffer zone it established after Syrian leader Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Horror of Homs...
fell last December, but would remain on the peak of Mount Hermon.
An Israeli official said that Jerusalem would insist on remaining at the strategically key location. Last month Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel’s need to maintain a presence in Syria is a "central lesson from the events of October 7."
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 Yom Kippur War.
The IDF described its presence in southern Syria’s buffer zone as a temporary and defensive measure, but the United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
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 was no longer in a position to implement it.
While aligned against Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups that threatened Israel’s north under Assad, Jerusalem has expressed distrust regarding Syria’s new government, which is led by former jihadists. Nonetheless, it has engaged in US-brokered talks aimed at reaching understandings with Damascus.
An Israeli official told Axios that additionally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is angling for a meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the UN General Assembly next week, though an Israeli official was cited as saying it was believed unlikely to happen.
HEAVY WEAPON WITHDRAWAL
Meanwhile,
...back at the Council of Boskone, Kinnison began his slow infiltration of the sewer system...
Syria has begun withdrawing heavy weapons from the country’s south as it works to reach an understanding with Israel, unnamed officials told AFP on Tuesday.
The Syrian foreign ministry said that Washington, "in consultation with the Syrian government, will work to reach security understandings with Israel concerning southern Syria that address the legitimate security concerns of both Syria and Israel."
The announcement was part of a US- and Jordan-backed roadmap for restoring stability in the south following intra-Syrian sectarian violence that drew Israeli intervention.
"Syrian forces have withdrawn their heavy weapons from southern Syria," a military official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that the process began around two months ago, after the violence.
A diplomatic source in Damascus told AFP, also on condition of anonymity, that the withdrawal covered the country’s south up to about 10 kilometers (six miles) outside the capital.
The week of bloodshed in Druze-majority Sweida province erupted on July 13 with festivities between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin but rapidly escalated, drawing in government forces and tribal fighters from other parts of Syria. Israel, which has its own Druze community, carried out
...KABOOM!...
s on government targets, saying it was acting to defend the minority group as well as to enforce its demands for south Syria’s demilitarization.
Syrian authorities have said their forces intervened after the violence broke out to stop the festivities, but witnesses, Druze factions and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog have accused them of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses against the Druze. The Observatory said the violence killed more than 2,000 people, including 789 Druze civilians "summarily executed by defense and interior ministry personnel."
Earlier on Tuesday, Syrian authorities announced the creation of a new internal security chief position for Sweida city, naming a member of the Druze community to the post. The new chief, Suleiman Abdel Baqi, leads a local gang that is seen favorably by the new authorities.
Rooters reported on Tuesday that Israel is working to unite splintered Druze factions in the Sweida area, providing them with arms and paying salaries of militia members in the wake of the massacres of the Druze there.