Syrian and Israeli Officials to Hold Meeting in Baku, Diplomatic Source Says
The confidential meeting will occur on the sidelines of President Sharaa’s official visit to Azerbaijan, though the Syrian leader himself is not expected to attend, according to AFP.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) — A senior Syrian official is set to meet with an Israeli counterpart later Saturday in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, amid a high-level visit by Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a diplomatic source in Damascus revealed.
According to AFP, the confidential meeting will occur on the sidelines of President Sharaa’s official visit to Azerbaijan, though the Syrian leader himself is not expected to attend. “There will be a meeting between a Syrian official and an Israeli official on the sidelines of the visit being conducted by Sharaa in Baku,” the source said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The focus of the discussions will reportedly center on the “recent Israeli military presence in Syria” following the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December. The nature and scale of Israel’s activities in Syria since the regime change remain a subject of both regional concern and international scrutiny.
Though Syria and Israel remain officially at war and have no diplomatic relations, indirect contacts and backchannel communications have occasionally occurred. However, a direct meeting—especially in the aftermath of Syria's leadership transition—marks a notable development in the decades-old adversarial relationship.
The source did not elaborate on the identities of the officials or the venue of the meeting within Baku, nor did they specify whether any agreements or future talks were expected to follow.
If confirmed, the meeting would represent one of the highest-level contacts between Syrian and Israeli representatives since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, potentially signaling a shift in the complex geopolitical dynamics of the region.
