Syria’s foreign minister accuses Israel of violating a 1974 agreement to advance its ‘expansionist and partition plans’.
Syria has condemned a new “military incursion” by Israel in the southwestern Damascus countryside area outside the capital, calling it a “grave threat to regional peace”, in the wake of the two sides recently holding talks in Paris on de-escalating the conflict in southern Syria.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani accused Israel on Monday of violating the 1974 Disengagement Agreement by establishing intelligence facilities and military posts in demilitarised areas to advance its “expansionist and partition plans”.
Al-Shaibani made the remarks at an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) foreign ministers to discuss Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
The latest Israeli military action in Syria follows deadly clashes in the Druze-majority Syrian province of Suwayda, where a week of sectarian violence in July killed 1,400 people before a ceasefire put an end to the bloodshed. Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and also bombed the heart of the capital, Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze.
Al-Sharaa will be first Syrian leader to address UNGA
In the meantime, it was announced that Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa will speak at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September, the first Syrian leader to do so in decades, as the nation seeks to rebuild and reengage with the international community after 14 years of ruinous civil war and the fall of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad.
In the more than 50 years that the al-Assad dynasty ruled Syria, neither Hafez al-Assad nor his son, Bashar, ever addressed the annual gathering of world leaders in New York.
“He will be the first Syrian president to speak at the United Nations since former President Nureddin al-Atassi (in 1967), and the first Syrian president ever to take part in the General Assembly’s high-level week,” scheduled for September 22-30, a Syrian official told the AFP news agency on Monday.
Al-Sharaa, who took power in December after leading rebels on a lightning advance to Damascus that toppled al-Assad, remains under UN sanctions and a travel ban due to his past as a fighter, and must request an exemption for all foreign trips.
In April, al-Shaibani addressed the UN for the first time and raised his country’s new flag at the body’s New York headquarters.
Since taking power, Syria’s new authorities have gained regional and international support, both diplomatic and financial, securing critical economic lifelines to reconstruct the devastated country.
Damascus signed 12 agreements worth $14bn this month, including a $4bn agreement with Qatar’s UCC Holding to build a new airport and a $2bn deal to establish a subway in Damascus with the national investment corporation of the United Arab Emirates.
Al-Sharaa met United States President Donald Trump in May in Saudi Arabia, a week after meeting French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on his first trip to the West.
Both the US and the European Union have lifted longstanding sanctions on Syria.
Syria will hold parliamentary elections in September, a week before the UNGA meeting.
They will be the first to take place under the country’s new authorities after the fall of al-Assad. One-third of the 210 seats will be appointed by al-Sharaa, with the rest to be elected.
