Israel offers Syria withdrawal in exchange for air corridor to Iran – report

Senior Israeli and Syrian officials reportedly set to meet for US-brokered talks as Israel offers to withdraw from territory occupied since Assad’s ouster in exchange for new security deal.

By World Israel News Staff

Israel and Syria are slated to begin talks Wednesday on a new security agreement between the two countries, according to a report published by Axios.

Citing two unnamed sources familiar with the details of the negotiations, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is scheduled to meet with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in London for talks brokered by Tom Barrack, the Trump administration’s ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria.

The report said that Israel conveyed a draft of a new security agreement to Syria several weeks ago that will serve as a basis for Wednesday’s talks.

Syria has not yet responded to the Israeli proposal and, according to the sources cited in Wednesday’s report, has been preparing a counterproposal that al-Shaibani will present to Dermer during their meeting.

Wednesday’s meeting, the third trilateral summit of representatives from Israel, Syria, and the US, comes amid reports of progress in talks between Israel and Syria.

The Trump administration has sought to mediate a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and Syria, which have technically remained in a state of war since 1948, under the aegis of the Abraham Accords.

Under the terms drafted by Israel, the IDF would withdraw from most of the territory occupied in Syria since the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad last December.

However, the Israeli pullout would occur in stages and would not include strategically important parts of the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, including the summit of Mount Hermon.

Last December, Israel redeployed its forces to the buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, a demilitarized zone created in 1974 after the Yom Kippur War, when Israel ceded portions of the territory it captured in 1967.

In exchange for the IDF withdrawals, the Israeli proposal calls for the expansion of the demilitarized zone in Syrian-held territory, barring the deployment of military forces, while law enforcement agencies would be permitted to operate.

Along with the expansion of the buffer zone by roughly two kilometers eastward into Syrian territory, the proposal also establishes a no-fly zone for Syrian aircraft in airspace southwest of Damascus up to the Israeli frontier.

In addition, Israel would be granted rights to an air corridor through Syrian airspace, enabling Israeli warplanes to reach Iran.