Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa (Jolani) has alleged that he and his followers from the former Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took power in Damascus as part of an agreement with Russia.
Sharaa, formerly known as Islamic State in Iraq commander Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, made the comments in an interview with the state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV channel. During the interview from days ago, Sharaa claimed that his forces had begun secret negotiations with Russia, Bashar al-Assad's key ally, during the offensive that eventually toppled Assad.
On November 27 of last year, HTS launched an offensive to capture Aleppo in northern Syria. His forces met little resistance and quickly took control of the city. His fighters then moved south toward Hama, the next major city on the road toward Damascus.
"When we reached Hama during the liberation battle, negotiations took place between us and Russia," Sharaa said.
When HTS forces continued south to Homs, the next major city, Russia "stayed out of the fighting… under an agreement concluded between us," he added.
Sharaa's forces took control of Damascus on December 8 after Assad fled the country to Russia. The interim Syrian president also claimed that his forces had deliberately avoided attacking Russia's Hmeimim airbase near Jableh on the country's coast and that he is committed to keeping good relations with Russia.
"Russia is an important country in the world and a member of the Security Council. There are close ties between Syria and Russia that we inherited. They must be preserved and developed calmly and carefully," he was quoted as saying in the interview.
In February, Reuters reported that Israel was lobbying the US to allow Russia to maintain its airbase in Hmeimim, as well as its naval base further south in Tartus. The lobbying was part of an Israeli effort to keep Syria weak and divided, Reuters added.
Syria is currently negotiating a security agreement with Israel, which has occupied large swathes of land in south-west Syria since Sharaa came to power. "We are now in a state of negotiations and dialogue on the issue of a security agreement," Sharaa said during the interview with Al-Ikhbariya.
He said he is asking Israel to honor the 1974 disengagement agreement establishing a demilitarized buffer zone after the 1973 October (Yom Kippur) War and to withdraw its troops to positions it held before 8 December.
Sharaa's comments appear to endorse Israeli control of the Syrian Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967 during the Six-Day War. Former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad refused to reach a peace agreement with Israel as long as the occupation of the Golan continued. His son Bashar continued the same policy.
Israel has also carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria to destroy the country's military infrastructure since 2018, when the covert US-Israeli war to topple the Syrian government ended.
But Israel unleashed an unprecedented number of airstrikes on Syria in the days after Assad fell on December 8, as the country's Russian-made air defenses were completely crippled. However, Israeli-Russian cooperation existed long before Sharaa's recent campaign to seize Damascus.
Professor Chen Kerchner of Ariel University wrote that Israel and Russia have engaged in "friendship balancing," despite being on opposite sides of the Syria conflict since 2015. The Russian air force entered the war in September of that year to bomb extremist groups supported by the US and Israel, including Sharaa's HTS and ISIS.
Russia and Israel "developed norms and structural practices – including regular meetings of elites, public statements, and other mechanisms – to mitigate disputes. These strategies created and sustained a friendship balance that prevented rivalry and escalation between the two," Kerchner wrote.
According to a former officer in the Syrian Army who spoke with The Cradle, Russia regularly blocked Syria from using its air defense systems when targeted by Israeli warplanes in the years before Assad was toppled. "Russian betrayed us long before December 8," the officer stated.
After Israel attacked Russia's erstwhile ally, Iran, in June of this year, President Vladimir Putin explained that Russia did not assist the Islamic Republic because "almost two million Russian-speaking people live in Israel."
After the fall of the Soviet Union, a number of Jewish businessmen amassed immense fortunes, becoming some of Russia's most prominent and influential oligarchs. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Bernie Bellan asked in the Jewish Post and News, "I wonder how many other Jews are harboring feelings of embarrassment over the fact that so many Russian oligarchs are Jews."
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