Syria, Israel hold US-mediated talks to de-escalate after Israeli strikes

Syria's foreign minister sat down across from Israeli intelligence officials in a Jordanian room this past Sunday, the two delegations separated by more than geography. Asaad al-Shaibani had come to talk de-escalation after weeks of Israeli strikes that had left Syrian territory scarred and the relationship between Damascus and Tel Aviv fractured nearly beyond repair. The United States had arranged the meeting, playing mediator in a conflict that had grown sharper since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

The talks centered on a practical question: how do two countries that do not trust each other stop shooting? According to Syrian state media, the discussions focused on building mechanisms to halt Israeli attacks and targeting operations, and on reviving a broader security agreement that had stalled months earlier. The Israeli delegation, led by Mossad chief Roman Gofman, came with its own agenda. They wanted to prevent Turkish military expansion into Syrian territory, keep the Syrian side of the Golan Heights free of weapons, protect the Druze community, and block Syria from acquiring certain strategic arms. Critically, Israel also made clear that any withdrawal from occupied Syrian land would depend on achieving diplomatic gains first—a condition that shifted the entire negotiating calculus.

Syria's position was equally firm. Al-Shaibani stressed that Damascus remained a sovereign state with the right to rebuild its military, choose its alliances, and govern its own territory without external constraint. Syria wanted Israeli forces to pull back to positions held before al-Assad's fall. It wanted the 1974 disengagement agreement fully restored. And it wanted acknowledgment that the Golan Heights belonged to Syria, not Israel. These were not negotiating points; they were stated facts, at least from Damascus's perspective.

The backdrop to these talks was turbulent. Israel had launched hundreds of strikes on Syria since al-Assad's overthrow and had sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights that had separated the two militaries for decades. Most recently, Israeli warplanes had bombed the Abu Duhur airbase in northwestern Idlib, claiming the strike was necessary to prevent Turkish forces from using the base. Syria and Turkey both denied this explanation, and the incident had triggered a sharp exchange between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two leaders were now trading public barbs, and Syria sat in the middle, worried that it might become the stage for a larger conflict.

In an interview before the meeting, al-Shaibani had told Reuters that Syria did not trust Israel but that diplomacy remained possible. He noted that the two sides had actually agreed on paper to nearly everything at the start of the year—security zones in southern Syria, a buffer area for UN forces only. Then, in late February, the US and Israel launched their war on Iran, and the talks froze. No one had set a date to resume them until now.

Yet analysts were skeptical. Hassan Mneimneh, a researcher at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera that the current round was unlikely to produce real de-escalation. He argued that Israel's historical pattern was to escalate demands once the other side showed willingness to negotiate. Now that Syria had signaled its desire to reduce tensions, Israel would likely use that opening to extract more concessions through American intermediaries. Mneimneh also noted Syria's deeper fear: that the country would become a battlefield between Israeli and Turkish interests, with Syria's fragile new government unable to consolidate power or prevent its own disintegration. From Damascus's perspective, these talks were less about achieving peace and more about survival—keeping the country intact while two larger powers competed for influence on Syrian soil.