Russia Supports ‘Comprehensive Talks’ with US on Syria

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands during their meeting in Ankara, Turkey September 16, 2019. Reuters
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands during their meeting in Ankara, Turkey September 16, 2019. Reuters
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Russia Supports ‘Comprehensive Talks’ with US on Syria

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands during their meeting in Ankara, Turkey September 16, 2019. Reuters
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands during their meeting in Ankara, Turkey September 16, 2019. Reuters

Moscow confirmed on Wednesday willingness to hold “comprehensive talks” with Washington over the situation in Syria.

During a videoconference of the New York Council on Foreign Relations, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said his country is interested in working with the United States to improve agreements aimed at preventing dangerous military incidents, on the basis of experience gained in Syria.

“We reconfirm our interest to improve bilateral agreement with the US to avoid dangerous military activities and an arrangement on avoidance of dangerous military incidents. To prop on this Syrian experience would be right in this case as well," the Russian official said.

He said Moscow has more contentious and difficult issues “rather than interfaces for our common work with the US on Syria.”

"We will do our utmost to ensure that the US understands properly what we are doing, why we are doing these things or that things there, and we will expand the interfaces of our dialogue with the US if the US reciprocates, if the US wants so. We are ready, on our part,” Ryabkov explained.

On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed during a telephone conversation the latest developments in Syria’s Idlib province and the situation in Libya.

They emphasized the importance of bolstering efforts towards compliance with bilateral agreements on a ceasefire in Idlib, the Kremlin press service said.

“An emphasis was put on a need to boost efforts towards the implementation of the Russian-Turkish agreements on the Idlib de-escalation zone, including the Additional Protocol to the Sochi Memorandum of September 17, 2018," it said.

Separately, a pro-Syrian regime demonstration was organized in Suwaida province in rejection and condemnation of US sanctions and the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Syria, Syrian regime media reported.

The demonstration coincided with a protest staged by anti-regime activists who demanded the release of Raed al-Khatib, an activist who was arrested by Syrian regime forces on June 9 during a raid on an office in Engy tower in Suwaida city for taking part in an anti-regime protest.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday it fears that Khatib will be subjected to torture and ultimately classified as forcibly “disappeared” like approximately 85 percent of those detained by the regime.

It noted that about 130,000 Syrian citizens are still held in the Syrian regime’s detention centers, constituting a grave threat to their wellbeing given the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.



Israel Says Rockets Fired from Syria for the First Time Since Bashar Assad’s Fall 

An Israeli military vehicle is seen near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, May 4, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli military vehicle is seen near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, May 4, 2025. (Reuters)
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Israel Says Rockets Fired from Syria for the First Time Since Bashar Assad’s Fall 

An Israeli military vehicle is seen near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, May 4, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli military vehicle is seen near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, May 4, 2025. (Reuters)

The Israeli army said two rockets were fired from Syria into open areas in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday, marking the first time a strike has been launched toward Israel from Syrian territory since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December.

Syrian state media reported that Israel shelled the western countryside of Syria’s Daraa province after the rocket launch. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, also reported Israeli airstrikes that caused “violent explosions” around the city of Quneitra and in the Daraa countryside.

A group calling itself the Mohammed Deif Brigades — named after a Hamas military leader killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza last year — claimed the attack in a post on Telegram. The group first surfaced on social media a few days before.

“Until now, it’s just a Telegram channel. It’s not known if it is a real group,” said Ahmed Aba Zeid, a Syrian researcher who has studied armed factions in southern Syria.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that Israel considers “the Syrian president directly responsible for every threat and firing toward the State of Israel” and warned of a “full response” to come “as soon as possible.”

Israel has been suspicious of the former opposition fighters who formed the new Syrian government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syria and seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory since Assad’s fall.

Syria’s foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run TV channel that it has “not yet verified the accuracy” of the reports of strikes launched from Syria toward Israel.

“We affirm that Syria has not and will not pose a threat to any party in the region,” the statement said. It condemned the Israeli shelling, which it said had resulted in “significant human and material losses.”

The US, which has warmed to al-Sharaa's government and recently moved to lift some sanctions previously imposed on Syria, has pushed for Syria to normalize relations with Israel.

In a recent interview with the Jewish Journal, al-Sharaa said he wants to see a return to a 1974 ceasefire agreement between the two countries but stopped short of proposing immediate normalization, saying that “peace must be earned through mutual respect, not fear.”