Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa said in an interview published Tuesday by The Washington Post that his country is holding direct negotiations with Israel but that a final security agreement will be reached only if Israel returns to its borders before December 8, the day it captured the buffer zone in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime.
“Since December 8, Israel has carried out more than 1,000 airstrikes in Syria, including bombings of the presidential palace and the defense ministry,” al-Sharaa said. “Because we are focused on rebuilding Syria, we have not responded to this aggression. Israel’s advances in Syria stem not from security concerns but from expansionist ambitions.”
He accused Israel of hypocrisy, saying, “Israel has always claimed to fear threats from Iranian militias and Hezbollah, but we are the ones who expelled those forces from Syria.”
Al-Sharaa said his country had made “considerable progress” in the negotiations, but an agreement would only be achieved if Israel withdrew from the territories it occupied. “The United States is with us in these talks, and many international parties support our view,” he said. “Today we learned that President Trump also supports it, and he will push as fast as possible for a resolution.”
When asked whether Syria would agree to demilitarize the area south of Damascus, al-Sharaa replied, “It is difficult to talk about an entire demilitarized zone. If chaos erupts there, who will protect it? If that zone is used to launch attacks on Israel, who will be responsible?”
“At the end of the day, this is Syrian land, and Syria must have the freedom to manage its own territory,” he said, before taking a jab at Israel: “Israel captured the Golan Heights to defend itself, and now it imposes its conditions in southern Syria to defend the Golan. So in a few years, maybe they’ll capture central Syria to defend the south. They’ll end up in Munich at this rate.”
Al-Sharaa met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday. Unlike Trump’s meetings with other world leaders, al-Sharaa was not seen entering through the main gate and was photographed only from outside the compound as he arrived through a side entrance. No reporters were allowed into the Oval Office to cover the start of the meeting.
“I get along with him. I’m confident this Syrian president is the right man for the job,” Trump said at a press conference when asked about the meeting. “We want to see Syria succeed, and I think he can make that happen. His past is problematic, but we all have a problematic past. He’s getting along very well with Turkey and with President Erdogan, who’s a great leader. Syria is an important part of the Middle East. We’re working to make sure Israel reaches an agreement with Syria, and it’s going very well.”
After the meeting, al-Sharaa gave an interview to Fox News, saying that Syria will not yet enter direct negotiations with Israel to join the Abraham Accords but did not rule out the possibility in the future with U.S. mediation. “Syria’s situation is different from that of the countries that joined the Abraham Accords,” he said. “Syria shares a border with Israel, and Israel has held the Golan Heights since 1967. We will not enter direct negotiations for now, but perhaps the U.S. administration, together with President Trump, will help us reach that kind of negotiation.”