Syria says meeting with Israeli officials sought to 'contain escalation'
A Syrian diplomatic source said Saturday that a U.S.-mediated meeting with Israeli officials in Paris this week sought to "contain the escalation" after recent sectarian violence in southern Syria prompted Israeli intervention.
Israel launched strikes this month on Damascus and Druze-majority Sweida province, saying it was acting both in support of the religious minority and to enforce its demands for a demilitarized southern Syria.
The Syrian diplomatic source told state television on Saturday that the recent Paris meeting "brought together a delegation from the foreign ministry and the general intelligence service with the Israeli side", and addressed "recent security developments and attempts to contain the escalation in southern Syria".
On Thursday, U.S. special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack had said he held talks with unspecified Syrian and Israeli officials in Paris.
A senior diplomat had previously told AFP that Barrack would be facilitating talks between Damascus's Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
According to the source cited by state TV, the meeting "addressed the possibility of reactivating the disengagement agreement with international guarantees, while demanding the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from points where they recently advanced."
After the overthrow of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel sent troops into a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone that used to separate the countries' forces in the strategic Golan Heights.
It has since conducted incursions deeper into southern Syria, demanding the area's total demilitarization.
- Death toll tops 1,400 -
Damascus had previously confirmed holding indirect contacts with Israel seeking a return to the 1974 disengagement agreement that created the buffer zone.
The Paris meeting "did not result in any final agreements but rather represented initial consultations that aimed to reduce tensions and reopen communication channels in light of the ongoing escalation since early December", the diplomatic source said.
More meetings were planned, the source said, adding that the Syrian side had emphasized that the country's unity and sovereignty were non-negotiable.
The week of clashes in Sweida, which began on July 13, initially involved Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes, but government forces intervened on the side of the latter, according to witnesses, experts and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
The Observatory said on Saturday that the violence had killed more than 1,400 people, most of them Druze, and the vast majority in the week between July 13 and a ceasefire last weekend.
- 'Calm dialogue' -
On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron said on X that he spoke with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and called the ceasefire in Sweida "a positive sign".
"The recent violence in Syria is a reminder of the extreme fragility" of the country's transition, Macron wrote, adding that "civilian populations must be protected".
Sharaa, in a statement released by the Syrian presidency, blamed the violence in Sweida on "armed outlaw groups opposing the state and competing for influence".
The state "will assume its full responsibility in imposing security and holding those who committed crimes to account", he said according to the statement, also rejecting "any external attempts, particularly by Israel, to exploit these conditions."
"Sweida is an integral part of the Syrian state and its people are partners in building the nation," he said.
Syrian and Israeli officials had previously met in Baku on July 12, according to a diplomatic source in Damascus, coinciding with a visit to Azerbaijan by Sharaa.
The two countries have technically been at war since 1948, and Israel has occupied the Golan Heights, which it seized from Syria, since 1967.
After Assad's ouster, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria to prevent key military assets from falling into the hands of the new Islamist-led administration.
