PARIS: President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said Wednesday that Syria was holding “indirect talks” with Israel to calm tensions between the two countries, following Israeli strikes and threats against Syria since Bashar Assad’s ouster.
“There are indirect talks (with Israel) taking place through mediators to calm the situation and try to contain the situation so it does not reach the point where it escapes the control of both sides,” Sharaa told a press conference in Paris alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Random Israeli interventions... have violated the 1974” armistice, Sharaa said, adding that “since we arrived in Damascus, we have told all relevant parties that Syria is committed to the 1974 agreement.”
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on the country since Assad’s December ouster and has said it wants to prevent advanced weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.
Israeli troops have also entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone along the 1974 armistice line on the Golan Heights and carried out incursions deeper into southern Syria.
Sharaa said the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force must “return to the Blue Line of separation,” adding that UNDOF had made a number of visits to Damascus.
Macron condemned Israeli strikes on Syria, saying they would not guarantee “Israel’s long-term security.”
“As for bombings and incursions, I think it’s bad practice. You don’t ensure your country’s security by violating the territorial integrity of your neighbors,” Macron said.
Sharaa said that “we are trying to speak with all countries that are in contact with the Israeli side to pressure them to stop interfering in Syria’s affairs, violating its airspace and bombing some of its facilities.”
Sharaa said he and Macron discussed “the ongoing Israeli threats,” adding that “Israel has bombed Syria more than 20 times in the past week alone... under the pretext of protecting minorities.”
Israel’s military said it launched strikes near Damascus’s presidential palace early Friday after the country’s defense minister threatened intervention if Syrian authorities failed to protect the Druze minority, after sectarian clashes in Druze areas last.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said the move was a “clear message” to Syria’s new rulers.
The clashes came after a wave of massacres in March in Syria’s Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast.
