ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani on Sunday held a US-mediated meeting with a high-level Israeli delegation in Jordan, state media reported, with talks focusing on de-escalation after recent Israeli strikes. 

The meeting “focused on establishing practical mechanisms to halt Israeli aggressions, arrest operations, and targeting, and reviving the negotiation track with the aim of reaching a security agreement that could form the basis for a more comprehensive future agreement,” a diplomatic source from the Syrian foreign ministry told the country’s state media.

Syrian state television reported on Tuesday that Israel conducted eight airstrikes against Abu al-Duhur military airbase in the northwestern Idlib province, causing material damage but no injuries, with condemnations subsequently flowing in from regional and international states.

On Saturday, an Israeli drone struck a civilian vehicle in the southern Rif Dimashq province, injuring several people, according to state TV.

Following the Tuesday attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “Israel and Syria agreed to a status quo in security matters, which Syria was on the verge of breaching by permitting Turkish troops to deploy at an airbase near Aleppo.”

Turkey had denied the allegations of deploying troops in Aleppo.

US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack denounced the strikes as an “unnecessary escalation” at the time, asserting that “the [Syrian] government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces. It has, in fact, repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel.”

Shaibani’s delegation reaffirmed Syria’s sovereignty and its “full rights to rebuild and develop its national army, and to determine its alliances and partnerships in accordance with its national interests,” the source explained.

The current government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa rose to power after ousting former leader Bashar al-Assad in a Turkish-backed offensive in December 2024, with Ankara having since maintained intimate ties with the new administration in Damascus.

Since the fall of Assad, Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in Syria - ostensibly with the goal of destroying arms caches and protecting the country's Druze minority - and occupied Syrian territory, making repeated incursions into border areas.

Tensions between Turkey and Israel have increasingly escalated in recent years, with Erdogan's outspoken condemnation of Israel's campaign in Gaza having underlined the two regional powers' rival bids for greater influence in the Middle East.

The Syrian and Israeli delegations also “addressed the importance of supporting stability in Syria and preserving regional security, including efforts aimed at bringing Turkish and Israeli viewpoints closer, and ensuring that the existing tensions between the two countries do not spill over onto Syrian territories,” the source said.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the Israeli forces to complete the takeover of the 1974 buffer zone in the Golan Heights, separating the two states, claiming that the 1974 Disengagement Agreement was void until order was restored in Syria.

In addition to the Golan Heights, Israel has repeatedly launched incursions into southwest Syria’s Quneitra countryside, conducting arrest sprees, raids, and setting up checkpoints.

Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan Heights was another topic of discussion as Shaibani’s delegation reiterated its position that “the occupied Golan is Syrian land,” saying however, that discussing it remains “premature in the current phase” of talks.

“Immediate priority lies in the withdrawal of Israeli forces to the lines prior to December 8, 2024, and the reactivation and full implementation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement,” the Syrian side stressed.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, during a visit to Syria last month, rejected Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights, most of which was captured from Syria during the 1967 war, and said that “violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity are unacceptable and must cease.”