Syria, Israel hold US-mediated talks in Jordan to de-escalate tensions

Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani has met with Israeli intelligence officials in Jordan, according to Syrian state media, as the two sides work to de-escalate tensions following an Israeli attack on a Syrian airbase near the Turkish border.

Syria’s Sana news agency, citing a diplomatic source, said the talks were mediated by the United States and involved a “high-level Israeli delegation”.

The AFP news agency reported that al-Shaibani met the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, Roman Gofman.

According to Sana, the discussions “focused on establishing practical mechanisms to halt Israeli attacks, arrests and targeting operations” as well as “reviving negotiations for a lasting security agreement between the two sides”.

They also discussed efforts to ease tensions between Israel and Turkiye and to prevent their rivalry from spilling onto Syrian ‌territory, Sana reported.

The US has sought to broker a security agreement between Israel and the government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa for more than a year. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on Syria since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 and sent troops into a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone that had long separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

It also bombed the Abu Duhur airbase in northwestern Idlib on Thursday, claiming the attack was to prevent Turkish troops from deploying at the base, a claim Syria and Turkiye have denied.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have also traded barbs since the incident, with tensions high between the two leaders.