Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani met with Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer in Paris on Tuesday in a U.S.-brokered meeting, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
According to SANA, the talks focused on de-escalating the conflict in southern Syria and reviving the 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, which established a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
The talks, which were also attended by U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, resulted in “understandings that support stability in the region,” the news agency said, without providing further details.
A senior Trump administration official confirmed the meeting to the Associated Press, saying Washington supports “any efforts that will bring lasting stability and peace between Israel and its neighbors” as part of President Donald Trump’s vision of a “stable Syria at peace with itself and its neighbors, including Israel.”
A Syrian source cited by Reuters 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.
Another source told the news outlet said the two sides agreed to continue talks focused on security coordination in southern Syria.
Israel did not immediately comment on the meeting.
The meeting marks the first publicly acknowledged direct negotiations between the two sides. Previous U.S.-mediated discussions in Paris and Azerbaijan over the summer ended without results.
The meeting follows last month’s clashes in Sweida province between Druze groups and Bedouin clans, which escalated when Syrian forces reportedly sided with the Bedouin. Israel carried out airstrikes on multiple targets, including the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters in Damascus, in defense of the Druze religious minority.
A U.S.-Turkish-Arab-mediated truce eased the fighting, which had killed hundreds, but clashes continued despite the ceasefire.
