Syria announced on Friday its readiness to cooperate with the United States in reimplementing the 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel. This agreement established a UN-patrolled buffer zone designed to separate the forces of the two countries.
In a statement released after a phone call with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani expressed Damascus’s “aspiration to cooperate with the United States to return to the 1974 disengagement agreement.”
Washington has been actively pursuing diplomatic efforts toward a normalization deal between Syria and Israel. US envoy Thomas Barrack stated last week that peace between the two nations is now a necessity. Speaking to The New York Times, Barrack confirmed this week that Syria and Israel are engaged in “meaningful” US-brokered talks aimed at ending their prolonged conflict.
The development follows the ousting of long-time Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December. Since then, Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes on Syrian territory and deployed its troops into the Golan Heights buffer zone. The United Nations has deemed these deployments a violation of the 1974 agreement. Israel has also launched numerous air strikes on military targets within Syria and carried out incursions deeper into the country’s south.
Syria’s new authorities have largely refrained from directly responding to these attacks and have acknowledged holding indirect talks with Israel to de-escalate tensions. The two countries currently lack official diplomatic relations, with Syria not recognizing Israel, and both nations technically remaining at war since 1948.
The 1974 Agreement on Disengagement between Israeli and Syrian Forces, signed on May 31, 1974, provided for a continuation of the ceasefire in effect after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the separation of forces by a United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). The agreement established a buffer zone and two equal areas of limitation for armaments and forces on both sides. Despite its longevity in maintaining a ceasefire, the agreement explicitly states it is “not a peace agreement” but “a step toward a just and durable peace.”
