Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said Tuesday that his country was working towards a “diplomatic solution” with Israel, with US mediation, despite ongoing Israeli attacks.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on Syria since the Islamist authorities ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
Israel also sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights since 1974.
Israel has carried out repeated incursions deeper into Syrian territory and has vowed to keep troops in a so-called “security zone” in southern Syria, where it seeks a broader demilitarized area.
“The attacks are still ongoing. We observed 65 incursions in July alone, and 52 in the first 18 days of August,” Shaibani told a press conference with his visiting Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen.
He slammed a “campaign of raids on homes in Quneitra province and the Damascus countryside”, and said Syria had registered 147 cases of Israeli troops detaining Syrians so far this year, with “49 of them still detained.”
“Despite these challenges, we are still committed to the option of a diplomatic solution and we are working seriously to achieve this,” Shaibani said, adding: “We are engaged in negotiations mediated by the United States of America.”
Israel and Syria have held several rounds of direct talks, most recently last month in Jordan after fresh Israeli strikes, including one on a disused airbase in the country’s northwest.
Israel claimed it wanted to prevent Turkish troops deploying to that facility, while Ankara denied any visit to the site.
Two sources had told AFP that Shaibani met the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency Roman Gofman in Jordan.
After January negotiations in Paris, the sides agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing mechanism as they edge towards a security agreement.
Shaibani said Tuesday that statements from Israeli officials expressing their intention to keep forces in Jabal al-Sheikh, or Mount Hermon, were “an explicit declaration on consolidating the occupation” and that they invalidated “any flimsy security pretexts.”
He said the talks aimed to “stop the attacks and arrests” and secure an Israeli withdrawal to pre-December 2024 positions “with a full return to adherence to the 1974 disengagement agreement.”
Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz visited troops in southern Syria, reiterating a pledge to keep forces in the area as long as there were “threats” to his country’s security.
Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and later annexed the areas under its control, a move only recognized by the United States and Colombia.