DAMASCUS, Syria — A Syrian official and an Israeli official are expected to meet in Baku later Saturday on the sidelines of President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s visit to Azerbaijan, a diplomatic source in Damascus with knowledge of the issue says.
“There will be a meeting between a Syrian official and an Israeli official on the sidelines of the visit being conducted by Sharaa in Baku,” says the source, who requests anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The source stresses that Sharaa himself would not attend the meeting, which would focus on “the recent Israeli military presence in Syria” since the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad in December.
Israel is a major arms supplier to Azerbaijan and has a significant diplomatic presence in the Caucasus nation, which neighbors its arch foe Iran.
The Syrian president arrived in Baku earlier Saturday for talks with his counterpart, Ilham Aliyev.
Azerbaijan announced it would begin exporting gas to Syria via Turkey, according to a statement from the Azerbaijani presidency.
After the overthrow of longtime ruler Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria to prevent key military assets from falling into the hands of the Islamist-led interim administration headed by Sharaa.
It also sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone that used to separate the opposing forces on the strategic Golan Heights, from which it has conducted forays deeper into southern Syria.
Sharaa has said repeatedly that Syria does not seek conflict with its neighbors, and has instead asked the international community to put pressure on Israel to halt its attacks.
His government recently confirmed that it had held indirect contacts with Israel seeking a return to the 1974 disengagement agreement, which created the buffer zone.
Israel says the accord fell apart since one of the sides was no longer in a position to implement it, and that the military action in Syria was a defensive move to protect the country from potential hostile forces that could have exploited the power vacuum. Israeli officials have referred to Sharaa as a terrorist due to his past affiliation with al-Qaeda.
But late last month, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Israel was interested in striking a peace and normalization agreement with Syria.
A Syrian government source quoted by state media responded that such talk was “premature.”
But during a visit to Lebanon this week, US special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said: “The dialogue has started between Syria and Israel.”
After meeting Sharaa in Riyadh in May, US President Donald Trump told reporters he had expressed hope that Syria would join other Arab states which normalized their relations with Israel.
“[Sharaa] said yes. But they have a lot of work to do,” Trump said.
Syria and Israel have technically been in a state of war since 1948, the year Israel was established.