Ammon News - Syrian and Israeli officials are set to resume U.S.-mediated talks in Paris in hopes of reaching a security agreement to defuse tensions between the two countries, a Syrian official said Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press that the delegation on the Syrian side will be headed by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani and the head of the General Intelligence Directorate, Hussein Salameh.

The official said Syria’s main aim in the talks is to reactivate a 1974 disengagement agreement that established a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria and to secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces, who seized control of that buffer zone more than a year ago.

AP