Israel’s Mossad chief holds rare call with Syrian Foreign Minister over Turkey military deployments: Report

Jerusalem, Aug 20 (IANS) Israel’s Mossad chief Roman Gofman held a phone call last week with Syrian foreign affairs chief Asaad Hassan al-Shibani about Turkey’s military presence in Syria, the first such contact since Gofman assumed leadership of Israel’s intelligence agency in June, Israel’s state-owned Kan TV reported.

The reported call comes amid escalating tensions between Israel and Turkey over Ankara’s alleged growing military role in Syria.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately comment on the report, Netanyahu addressed the issue in a video posted by his Likud party on social media platform X, stating that Israel would “not tolerate a Turkish military buildup in Syria that threatens Israel.”

Referring to Israel’s strike on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase on Tuesday, he added, “We made the message clear. Apparently, they did not hear it well enough, so we made sure they understood it better.”

Israel had said the strike was carried out because Damascus has allowed Turkish forces to deploy there. Turkey rejected the claim, accusing Israel of violating Syria’s sovereignty, reports Xinhua news agency.

Israeli warplanes carried out eight airstrikes early Tuesday on the runway of the Abu al-Duhur military airport in Idlib province in northwestern Syria.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israel’s military chief Eyal Zamir toured southern Syria, the military said, a day after Israel carried out airstrikes on an airbase in northwestern Syria, citing what it said was the deployment of Turkish forces there.

“We will not allow hostile forces to establish themselves on our borders,” Zamir said during the visit. “We see what is happening and are monitoring the changes on the Syrian front.”

“We are still in a multi-front war, alert and operating in all arenas — escalation can develop in any one of them, and we must remain in constant readiness for that,” he added.

The military said Zamir held a security assessment with senior commanders and visited Israeli troops operating in what it calls a “security zone” in southern Syria.

–IANS

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