Marking the Iranian bases in Syria to be distanced from the Israeli border took up most of the nearly five hours Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spent in Sochi this week with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Gen. Sergei Shoigu. In their intensive deliberations over large maps on Thursday, Sept. 12, the leaders were assisted by the Russian-speaking Israeli Minister Zeev Elkin, National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, IDF Intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman and OC Operations Maj. Gen. Aharon Havilah.
The Israelis sat down with Gen. Shoigu for more than an hour and-a-half, after which Netanyahu visited Putin who greeted him by saying: “I understand you had an excellent meeting with Shoigu and we shall talk about this later.” The prime minister replied that the bond between Moscow and Jerusalem “had prevented unnecessary and dangerous friction between their countries,” and “I can say without reservation that it is a fundamental component of regional stability.”
What was discussed in their three-hour long conversation?
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that, in recent weeks, Putin has focused on redistributing Iranian forces in Syria by pulling them back to an 80km line from which they no longer pose a threat to northern Israel. He was persuaded to take this course by three considerations:
- He adopted the Netanyahu line which urges the removal of Iranian military forces from Syria, because he believes it will provide him with a bridge on which to strengthen his political and military cooperation with President Donald Trump.
- While Moscow and Washington are at odds on key issues such as US sanctions against Russia and disarmament, especially of intermediate nuclear weapons, Putin believes they have common ground in Syria, which can be expanded, thereby bolstering Russian military ascendancy in that country, to which he attributes supreme importance.
- The Russian leader is convinced that his close ties with Netanyahu will help him promote his case in Washington. READ MORE
