DAMASCUS: A Syrian and an Israeli official met face to face in Baku on Saturday on the sidelines of a visit to Azerbaijan by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a diplomatic source in Damascus said.

The meeting marked a major step for the two countries which have been foes for decades, and comes after Israel initially cold-shouldered Sharaa’s administration as jihadist because of his past links to Al Qaeda.

“A meeting took place between a Syrian official and an Israeli official on the sidelines of Sharaa’s visit to Baku,” the source said.

Israel is a major arms supplier to Azerbaijan and has a significant diplomatic presence in the Caucasus nation which neighbours its arch foe Iran. Sharaa himself did not take part in the meeting, which focused on “the recent Israeli military presence in Syria,” the source added.

After the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria to prevent key military assets falling into the hands of the interim administration headed by Sharaa.

It also sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone that used to separate the opposing forces in the strategic Golan Heights, from which it has conducted forays deeper into southern Syria.

Sharaa has said repeatedly that Syria does not seek conflict with its neighbours, and has instead asked the international community to put pressure on Israel to halt its attacks.

His government recently confirmed that it had held indirect contacts with Israel seeking a return to the 1974 disengagement agreement which created the buffer zone. Late last month, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel was interested in striking a peace and normalisation agreement with Syria.

A Syria government source quoted by state media responded that such talk was “premature”. But during a visit to Lebanon this week, US special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said: “The dialogue has started between Syria and Israel”.

After meeting Sharaa in Riyadh in May, US President Donald Trump told reporters he had expressed hope that Syria would join other Arab states which normalised their relations with Israel. “(Sharaa) said yes. But they have a lot of work to do,” Trump said.

During his visit to Baku, Sharaa held talks with his counterpart Ilham Aliyev, the two governments said. Azerbaijan announced it would begin exporting gas to Syria via Turkiye, a key ally of both governments, a statement from the Azerbaijani presidency said.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2025