Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa told reporters in Damascus on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He described the security pact as a “necessity” and said it would need to respect Syria’s air space and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since December 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was "very dangerous."
What does the reported pact entail?
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after December 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights because it was "a big deal."
"It’s a difficult case - you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew," Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
Israel presented Syria with a proposal for a new security agreement, Axios reported on Tuesday.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Axios that part of the proposal included a map from Damascus southwest up to the border with Israel.
Sources told Axios that the agreement is based on the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt. The proposal would see areas southwest of Damascus get split into three different zones.
Israel would extend the current buffer zone on the Syrian side by two kilometers. Under the proposal, the whole swath of land southwest of Damascus to the Israeli border would be a no-fly zone for any Syrian aircraft, Axios reported.
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just "four to five days" away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as "not a message, but a declaration of war," and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.