Israel says Syria was close to breaching a security understanding; Damascus says none exists
Turkey, named in the Israeli statement as the reason for the strikes, calls the claim a cover for them, while the Emirati foreign ministry says the raid broke the 1974 agreement on separating forces.
The Israeli prime minister's office said on Tuesday that Syria had come close to breaking a security understanding between the two states by agreeing to let Turkish soldiers deploy at an air base near Aleppo, and called that a threat to Israeli security. The statement followed Israeli air strikes on the Abu al-Duhur base, in the eastern countryside of Idlib province in the northwest of Syria.
It added that Israel would not put up with threats of that kind and would welcome a return to the arrangement it says was in place. The statement did not say when that understanding was reached, at what level it was agreed, or what it obliges either side to do.
Turkey's Communications Directorate answered within hours, describing the Israeli account as frivolous and saying its purpose was to make lawful what it called strikes against Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Ankara said the accusations belonged to a wider set of expansionist and destabilising policies pursued ahead of elections, and that it would go on working with the Syrian government on a legitimate basis.
A diplomatic source at the Syrian foreign ministry went further and denied that any security arrangement with Israel exists at all. The source said Israel had been told before the raid that no foreign force was present at the site, and that Damascus would not sign anything that "obstructs the building of civilian and military institutions".
The three accounts cannot all be true, and what separates them is not the raid itself. Israel is arguing that a rule was nearly broken; Syria is saying there is no rule to break. Which of the two holds decides whether the next strike is read as a dispute over the terms of an understanding, or as an attack with nothing agreed behind it.
The Emirati foreign ministry condemned the strikes the same day, rejecting in the strongest terms what it called a flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty and of international law, and saying the continuing attacks breach the 1974 agreement on the separation of forces, which Israel is obliged to respect. It called on other states to act to halt the repeated attacks on Syrian territory.