SOHR: Bennett will meet with Putin: will try to block Iran’s establishment in Syria
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is expected to meet with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this weekend for a personal meeting, during which he will ask him to preserve Israel’s freedom of action in the northern border region of Syria and keep Iranian forces away from it. Bennett will also focus on a meeting on the Iranian nuclear issue.
This is Bennett’s first meeting as prime minister with the Russian president, and alongside the desire to establish personal ties with Putin, Bennett will focus on Iranian attempts to establish itself in Syria and establish a terrorist infrastructure there.
The meeting will be joined by Minister Zeev Elkin of New Hope, who will serve as an interpreter. Elkin, it will be recalled, used to attend meetings held by Bennett’s predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, with President Putin, and as such he is familiar with the intricacies of the relationship between the two countries and the agreements.
For about a week now, there has been a significant Russian presence in Syria, which makes Russia a kind of neighbor of Israel in the north. According to an analysis by Lilach Shuvach in Israel Today, it is no secret that Russia and Iran do not have the same identity of interests in Syria, and on the contrary, the two compete for resources and control over the country, and Israel has been trying to exploit this in recent years.
Another issue that will come up in a meeting with Putin is the Iranian nuclear issue, which is reportedly being discussed with the nuclear agreements. With the entry of President Biden into the White House, some of the sanctions on Iran were released, and in light of the fact that it is not bound by the nuclear deal, it began to enrich uranium in higher quantities.
As you may recall, according to foreign publications on official television in Syria, the Israeli Air Force attacked Iranian terrorist targets over the weekend in the city of Tadmor in the Homs district in Syria. A Syrian soldier was reportedly killed and three others wounded. In Israel, the reports were not addressed.
This was the second attack in a week attributed to Israel. About a week and a half ago, it was reported that two members of Iran’s Shiite militias killed in an attack in Syria, in an attack attributed to the Israeli media by Israel. The attack was aimed at an Iranian drone depot located in Syria – at the T-4 military airport in Homs province, the opposition organization “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights”, based in London, reported.
SOURCE: Middle East.in-24