Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Friday that Syria and the Iranian presence there will feature high on the agenda of the summit between Putin and US President Donald Trump in Helsinki on Monday.
Israel and Russia have long been rumored to be hammering out a deal on the status of Iran’s forces in Syria, as the civil war in the nation winds down and President Bashar Assad regains much of the territory he lost to rebel forces during seven years of fighting.
An unnamed senior Israeli official told Reuters Thursday that Moscow was seeking to push Iranians forces 80 kilometers (50 miles) away from the Israeli border. But he said Israel wanted Tehran and its proxies to completely pull out of the country.
After years of ruinous civil war, Iran and its proxy militias, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, have built up a formidable presence stretching from the Iraqi border through central Syria to Lebanon. (Read More)
