Israeli and Syrian officials will meet in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku on Thursday to discuss containing hostilities in the mostly Druze area of Sweida in south Syria, senior diplomats have told The National.
The move comes after an offensive by Damascus that has drawn in Sunni militants and risked regional instability.
Axios first reported that Tom Barrack, the US envoy to Syria, had arranged the meeting, without specifying the venue. However, officials from Turkey, the most powerful backer of the post-Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, will also be present in Baku, along with US officials, the two diplomats said.
Israel conducted an aerial campaign last week that killed hundreds of Syrian military personnel, curbing a government offensive on Sweida. The city's Druze leadership has largely opposed attempts by Damascus to deploy security forces to take control of the area. The central government is dominated by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a splinter group of Al Qaeda that ousted the former regime in December.
“The immediate goal will be to stop destruction of Syrian assets by Israel as part of a deconfliction deal,” one diplomat said. “In return the Israelis will want [Syria's President Ahmad] Al Shara to leave the Druze alone, for now.”
A third source in Jordan said the meeting was arranged shortly before a deadline set by Israel for all Syrian government forces to withdraw from the governorate of Sweida. Israel said it would resume the aerial campaign otherwise.
Jordan's state television said the kingdom on Wednesday sent an aid convoy to southern Syria. But the authorities did not reveal its size or say whether any of the aid has reached besieged Sweida.
Syrian and Israeli officials conducted a face-to-face meeting in Baku last month, arranged by Turkey and attended by senior officials from the two sides. It addressed southern Syria and touched on the potential for a broader peace deal, the sources said.
“The Israelis made it clear that they will not allow Al Shara free hand in Sweida. It seems that he thought that he had enough US and Turkish support to ignore them,” one of the sources said.
Damascus deployed thousands of militants near the border with Jordan as part of an offensive by the government to control Sweida. Israel has accused Damascus of breaching demilitarisation deals that forbade the Syrian government from posting the military in the south.
Although the thrust of the offensive on Sweida subsided at the weekend, government forces were on Wednesday still attacking rural Druze areas next to the city of Shahba, near Sweida city, the provincial capital.
