i24news: Possible scenarios of lands exchange opening the door to normalization
The Israeli i24news website revealed that Syria is demanding that Israel hand over at least a third of the Golan Heights area it occupied before the 1974 armistice agreement in order to proceed with the normalization agreement, according to a source close to the head of the transitional phase in Syria, Ahmed al Sharaa.
According to the Israeli website, “The return of parts of the Golan Heights… is crucial to local public support for such a move”.
i24news website quoted the Syrian source as saying, “There is no such thing as free peace”.
He revealed that there are currently two scenarios being proposed for what he calls an acceptable political settlement between Israel and Syria.
The first scenario is based on Israel retaining strategic areas in the Golan Heights equivalent to one-third of its territory, handing over one-third to Syria, and leasing the other third for 25 years.
The other scenario is that Israel would retain two-thirds of the Golan Heights and hand over the remaining third to Syria, with the possibility of leasing it.
According to the second scenario, the Lebanese city of Tripoli, near the Lebanese-Syrian border, and perhaps other Lebanese regions in northern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, would be handed over to Syria.
The source indicated that Syria seeks to regain what it called “sovereignty” over Tripoli, one of five regions cut off from Syria to establish the “Greater Lebanon” state during the French mandate.
The settlement must also include handing over Tripoli and other Sunni-majority Lebanese regions to Syria, on the condition that Israel be allowed to extend a pipeline to transport water from the Euphrates to Israel, as part of a water agreement involving Türkiye, Syria, and Israel.
The Syrian source said, “al Sharaa has shown unprecedented openness and opened direct channels of communication with Israel for security and military coordination in southern Syria”.
He pointed out that recovering parts of the Golan Heights, other than those seized by Israeli forces inside Syrian territory after the fall of the Assad regime, is crucial for such a move to gain local public support.
Al “Shara’a is likely to face significant internal resistance if he fails to do so,” the Syrian source added.
The Syrian source concluded that lifting US sanctions has nothing to do with normalization, stressing that lifting sanctions is a separate issue.
It’s noteworthy that the US Special Envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, confirmed that Syria and Israel are engaged in meaningful talks, through which Washington aims to restore calm.
In an interview with the New York Times, Barrack expressed the US administration’s desire for Syria to join the normalization agreements.
