Syrian Minister Met Israel’s Dermer for Talks on Regional Stability, Sources Say

Syria’s foreign minister met Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer in Paris on Tuesday to discuss security arrangements in southern Syria, two Syrian sources familiar with the meeting said.

Syrian and Israeli officials have been conducting US-mediated talks on de-escalating conflict in southern Syria. A previous round of these talks was held in Paris in late July but ended without a final accord.

Syrian state news agency SANA said Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani met with an Israeli delegation on Tuesday, but did not mention Dermer.

The agency said the discussions focused on de-escalation, non-interference in Syrian domestic affairs, and reactivating a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a UN buffer zone in the Golan Heights.

There was no public comment by the Israeli government on the meeting.

A Syrian security source familiar with the meeting said Shibani and Dermer met for several hours, along with their respective teams.

The source said Shibani emphasized that Israel’s ongoing interventions in southern Syria, including incursions into the provinces of Quneitra and Deraa, risked further destabilizing the region.

The two sides agreed to continue talks focused on security coordination in southern Syria, the source said.

Another Syrian source familiar with the meeting said Israel had again raised establishing a “humanitarian corridor” to send aid directly into Sweida, a Druze-majority province in Syria’s south that saw days of sectarian violence last month.

Syria had previously rejected this idea but Israel raised it again, the source said.

Hundreds of people were reported killed in the clashes in Sweida province between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and government forces. Israel intervened with airstrikes to prevent what it said was mass killings of Druze by government forces.

The clashes last month underlined the challenges interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa faces in stabilizing Syria and maintaining centralized rule, despite warming ties with the US and his administration’s evolving security contacts with Israel.