Syria and Israel Hold Talks in Jordan After Idlib Airstrike
Syrian and Israeli delegations met in Jordan, brokered by the United States, in their first talks since the Idlib airstrike. The Golan Heights and a joint control room were on the table.
Officials from Syria and Israel met on Sunday, August 23, in Jordan, in the first high level direct talks since Israeli warplanes struck a military airport in Syria’s Idlib province a week earlier. For Belgrade this is not distant news without consequences: every new round of tension in the Middle East pushes up world oil prices and raises the question of fresh migrant pressure on the Balkan route, while Serbia, as a candidate for European Union membership, watches how Washington and Brussels align their positions on a region that has shaped the West’s foreign policy agenda for months.
The meeting was first reported by Syria’s state news agency SANA, citing a diplomatic source in Damascus. The talks were mediated by the United States and hosted by Jordan. Syria was represented by a delegation led by Foreign Minister Asaad al Shaibani, which also included the heads of the general and military intelligence services. On the Israeli side, the negotiating team was led by Mossad chief Roman Gofman.
What was actually discussed
According to available information, the table included practical mechanisms for halting Israeli strikes, arrests and targeted operations on Syrian territory. Also under discussion was a proposal to set up a joint operations room in Jordan, under United States oversight, which would include Turkey as an additional channel to prevent escalation between Ankara and Tel Aviv on Syrian soil.
Damascus named its immediate priorities as an Israeli withdrawal to the positions its forces held before December 8, 2024, and the full restoration of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. According to SANA, the Syrian side said during the talks that “Syria is a sovereign state with the full right to rebuild and develop its national army,” adding that it would not accept arrangements limiting that right, nor its right to choose its own allies.
Syrian representatives repeated that they consider the Golan Heights their own territory, but said discussing its final status at this stage of the talks would be premature.
What Israel is asking for
The Israeli delegation reportedly entered the talks with its own conditions: preventing a Turkish military presence in Syria, demilitarizing the zone along the Golan, protecting the Druze community and limiting Syrian armament. These demands remain the biggest obstacle to a deal, since Damascus insists its right to its own army cannot be a subject of negotiation with the other side.
Why the talks were cut off in the first place
Syria had completely severed contact with Israel after the strike on the Abu el Duhur military airport in Idlib province, carried out overnight between August 17 and 18. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the strike was based on intelligence about Turkish plans to deploy drones and radar systems at the airport, a claim Syria and Turkey deny.
The two sides’ talks had, in fact, been frozen since February 2026, when the United States and Israel launched operations against Iran, and no date for their resumption had been set before Sunday’s meeting.
Syrian Turkish backdrop
These talks come at a time when relations between Israel and Turkey, which has its own interests in Syria, are already strained. We previously reported on Ankara issuing an Interpol arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as on seven countries demanding Israel withdraw its tender for the E1 settlement project in the West Bank. Both cases show how the region, which also includes Jordan as host of Sunday’s talks, has become the stage for parallel diplomatic conflicts intertwined with the Syrian Israeli negotiations.
The Israeli prime minister’s office had not responded to reporters’ questions about the outcome of the meeting by the time this article was published. The next step will depend on whether the proposal for a joint operations room in Jordan wins support from Turkey too, since its presence in northern Syria remains the main point of disagreement between Damascus and Tel Aviv.
