CAIRO (Reuters) -Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani met an Israeli delegation in Paris on Tuesday to discuss bolstering stability in the region and southern Syria, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported.
Syrian and Israeli officials have been conducting U.S.-mediated talks on de-escalating the conflict in southern Syria.
The discussions between the Israeli and Syrian sides focused on de-escalation and non-interference in Syrian domestic affairs, according to SANA.
The meeting also saw discussions on the reactivation of the 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a U.N. buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
It was the second meeting between the two sides in the French capital in less than a month after they agreed in July to continue talks after no final accord was reached on de-escalating tensions in southern Syria.
Hundreds of people have been reported killed in clashes in the southern Syrian province of Sweida between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes and government forces. Israel intervened with airstrikes to prevent what it said was mass killings of Druze by government forces.
The clashes last month underlined the challenges interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa faces in stabilising Syria and maintaining centralised rule, despite warming ties with the U.S. and his administration’s evolving security contacts with Israel.
(Reporting by Menna Alaa El Din and Kinda Makieh,; Writing by Muhammad Al Gebaly and Menna Alaa El-Din; Editing by Leslie Adler and Stephen Coates)
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