A meeting between ministers from Syria and Israel is scheduled for this Thursday in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, with the aim of addressing issues related to security in southern Syria, according to a diplomat who spoke to AFP and requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The meeting will bring together Syria's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Asaad al-Shaibani, and Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, as a continuation of a similar meeting both held in Paris last week.
The meeting in Azerbaijan's capital will focus primarily on "the security situation, especially in southern Syria." At the meeting held in Paris, the discussion revolved around "recent developments in security and efforts to contain the escalation in southern Syria," according to Syrian state television.
Banderas de Siria e Israel.
These diplomatic moves come after violent clashes in Syria's Sweida province, which has a Druze majority, resulting in more than 1,400 fatalities, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The fighting began as a conflict between local Druze militias and Bedouin tribes, but quickly expanded with the involvement of Syrian regime forces and the State of Israel, which declared its intervention to protect the Druze community. In this context, Israel launched attacks against the presidential palace in Syria and against the Ministry of Defense in the city of Damascus.
Benjamin Netanyahu y Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The United States, a close ally of Israel that also expressed its support for the Syrian authorities, announced a ceasefire between the warring parties during the night of July 18. Prior to the outbreak of violence in Sweida province, representatives from Israel and Syria had already met in Baku on July 12.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December 2024, Israel has deployed the army on the border with Syria and has carried out numerous attacks on positions inside Syria, seeking to destroy military arsenals or cells of Islamic terrorist groups. Meanwhile, the Syrian government acknowledged that it is holding indirect talks with Israel to prevent a further escalation of the conflict.
