Syria ready to work with US to return to 1974 disengagement deal with Israel

TDT | Damascus

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Syria said yesterday it was willing to cooperate with the United States to reimplement the 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel, which created a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating the two countries' forces.

In a statement after a phone call with his US counterpart Marco Rubio, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani expressed Damascus's "aspiration to cooperate with the United States to return to the 1974 disengagement agreement". Washington has been driving diplomatic efforts towards a normalisation deal between Syria and Israel, with envoy Thomas Barrack saying last week that peace between the two was now needed.

Speaking to The New York Times, Barrack confirmed this week that Syria and Israel were engaging in "meaningful" US-brokered talks to end their conflict.

Following the toppling of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria and deployed its troops into the Golan Heights buffer zone, which the UN considered a violation of the agreement.

Israel has also launched hundreds of air strikes on military targets in Syria and carried out incursions deeper into the country's south.

Syria's new authorities refrained from responding to the attacks and admitted to holding indirect talks with Israel to reduce tensions.