Newsletters
Syria is set to finalize several security and military agreements with Israel by the end of 2025, a foreign ministry official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday, marking a significant development since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “There is progress in the talks with Israel. Several agreements are expected to be signed by the end of the year. Primarily, these would be security and military agreements, with a focus on halting Israeli military operations inside Syria.”
In a related development, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani arrived in Washington on Thursday for the first official visit by a Syrian foreign minister in over 25 years, state television reported. The trip aims to discuss the lifting of remaining U.S. sanctions on Syria.
Most U.S. sanctions had already been lifted after Assad was ousted by the Syrian opposition-led alliance in December. The last Syrian foreign minister to visit Washington was Farouk al-Sharaa in 1999, who held talks on peace negotiations with Israel.
The U.S. has encouraged both Syria and Israel to reach an agreement to halt hostilities between the two nations, which have technically been at war since 1948.
Since December, Israel deployed troops to a U.N.-monitored buffer zone separating the countries’ forces and launched hundreds of strikes in Syria while also engaging in direct negotiations with Syria’s new leadership.
4 min read
