US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said Friday that a normalization agreement between Syria and Israel could be reached before a similar deal with Lebanon, citing what he described as Damascus\u2019s consistent willingness to engage.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Barrack said Syria under the leadership of Ahmed al-Sharaa \u201chas never fired a shot at Israel, quite the opposite,\u201d adding that \u201cthey have, time and time again, said we\u2019re available to talk.\u201d\u00a0\u201cMy bet is, we\u2019ll get to a non-aggression and normalization agreement with Syria sooner than Lebanon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
What will happen to the Lebanon-Israel ceasfire if Hezbollah is not dismantled?<\/p>\n
Barrack described Syria\u2019s approach as restrained, saying, \u201cThe Syrians have shown tremendous patience,\u201d and added that \u201cthere\u2019s no purpose\u201d in confrontation with Israel. He also noted the complexity of the regional environment, saying, \u201cWe’re dealing with five countries on five borders, two seas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Addressing Israel\u2019s position, Barrack said Israel views Druze communities in southern Syria and along the border as closely connected, stating they are \u201cactually cousins of Israel.\u201d He also made critical remarks about Israeli policy, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u201cdoesn\u2019t care about borders\u201d or \u201cboundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
On regional dynamics, Barrack suggested closer alignment between Israel and Turkey could emerge, similar to Israel\u2019s ties with Gulf states. \u201cIsrael aligned with Turkey, like Israel aligned with Abu Dhabi, like Saudi Arabia could be aligned with Israel,\u201d he said, adding that such cooperation would support regional prosperity.<\/p>\n
Separately, Barrack said he expects progress in resolving tensions between Washington and Ankara over Turkey\u2019s acquisition of the Russian S-400 air defense system. \u201cI think you are going to see the S-400 situation solved soon,\u201d he said, adding that from the US perspective, \u201cacceptance into an F-35 program is fine,\u201d referring to discussions on potentially restoring Turkey\u2019s participation in the fighter jet program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said Friday that a normalization agreement between Syria and Israel could be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-396805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}