What caused the collapse of the late-stage Israel-Syria negotiations?
According to Al Arabiya TV, Syria and Israel recently came close to signing a security agreement. Still, sources reported that efforts to reach the agreement were hampered at the last minute.
According to the report, Reuters news agency wrote: According to the sources, the reason for the efforts being hampered is Israel’s demand to open a crossing (from the occupied territories) to the Sweida province in southern Syria.
This happened after the two sides reached a consensus on the general outline of the agreement in the past few weeks, after months of US-mediated negotiations in Baku, Paris, and London, which accelerated ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York this week.
The agreement aims to create a demilitarized zone that includes the Sweida province. The province witnessed clashes last July between Bedouin Arab armed groups and Syrian government forces on the one hand, and Druze forces supported by the Israeli regime on the other.
According to the report, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, also known as Ahmed al-Shara, the head of the Syrian interim transitional government, had previously expressed optimism that negotiations with Tel Aviv to reach a security agreement were ongoing. Also, Syria’s representative to the United Nations, Ibrahim Ali, confirmed in an interview with Al-Arabiya on Thursday that negotiations between the two sides were at an advanced stage.
In this regard, Tom Barak, the US special envoy to Syria, explained that Damascus and Tel Aviv are on the verge of concluding a “de-escalation” agreement, according to which the Israeli regime will stop its attacks and, in return, Syria will agree not to deploy any heavy (military) equipment or tools near the Syrian border with the occupied territories.