Syrian and Israeli officials meet in Azerbaijan!

A Syrian and an Israeli official met face-to-face in the capital Baku on the sidelines of Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara’s visit to Azerbaijan. They met on Saturday (July 12), a diplomatic source in Damascus said. The meeting is a major step for Israel and Syria, as the two officials met face-to-face after decades of hostility. The source, who requested anonymity, said, “A meeting took place between a Syrian official and an Israeli official on the sidelines of al-Shara’s visit to Baku.” Israel is a major arms supplier to Azerbaijan and has a significant diplomatic presence in the Caucasian country, which is a neighbor of its arch-enemy Iran. The source added that al-Shara himself did not attend the meeting, which discussed the recent Israeli military presence in Syria. Following the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria to prevent the al-Sharaa-led interim administration from seizing key military assets. Meanwhile, al-Sharaa has repeatedly said that Syria does not seek conflict with its neighbors. Instead, it has called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop its attacks. The Syrian government recently confirmed that it had made indirect contact with Israel to return to the 1974 disengagement agreement that created the buffer zone. Late last month, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that Israel was interested in a deal to normalize relations with Syria. However, a Syrian government source, quoted by state media, said that this was at an early stage. But during a visit to Lebanon this week, the US special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said that dialogue between Syria and Israel had begun.