Negotiations toward a security agreement between Israel and Syria have reached a deadlock, Israeli sources told Kan 11 News on Monday.
According to the sources, Israel has rejected Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s demand for a full Israeli withdrawal from all positions captured by the IDF in Syria following the fall of former President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.
The sources added that Israel would consider withdrawing from some of those positions only in exchange for a comprehensive peace agreement with Syria - not merely a security arrangement - and that no such agreement appears to be on the horizon at this time.
Last week, in an interview with the Washington Post during his visit to Washington, al-Sharaa revealed that Syria is engaged in direct negotiations with Israel, but stressed his demand that Israel withdraw from territories captured after a group of rebels led by al-Sharaa toppled the Assad regime.
“We have gone a good distance on the way to reach an agreement. But to reach a final agreement, Israel should withdraw to their pre-Dec. 8 borders,” al-Sharaa said. “Today, we found that Mr. Trump supports our perspective as well, and he will push as quickly as possible in order to reach a solution for this.”
Asked whether Syria would agree to demilitarize the region south of Damascus, al-Sharaa rejected the idea. “To talk about an entire region demilitarized, it will be difficult, because if there is any kind of chaos, who will protect it? If this demilitarized zone was used by some parties as a launching pad for hitting Israel, who is going to be responsible for that?”
He added, “At the end of the day, this is Syrian territory, and Syria should have the freedom of dealing with their own territory.”
In a separate interview with Fox News, which aired a day earlier, al-Sharaa was asked about the possibility of Syria joining the Abraham Accords and was cautious.
He would not acknowledge whether Syria would agree to recognize Israel’s right to exist and would only say, “Syria has borders with Israel, and Israel occupies the Golan Heights since 1967. We are not going to enter into a negotiation directly right now. Maybe the United States administration, with President Trump, will help us reach this kind of negotiation.”
In September, al-Sharaa told reporters in Damascus that ongoing negotiations with Israel on a security pact could lead to results "in the coming days"
At the time, he stated that if the security pact is successful, it could lead to “additional agreements”, but also clarified that a normalization or peace deal with Israel are not on the table at this time.