BICOM

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will today meet with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, with talks set to focus on the growing uncertainty in Syria and a proposed Russian weapons sale to President Assad’s regime.

The meeting is expected to take place at Putin’s Black Sea residence at Sochi and a Kremlin statement yesterday confirmed the talks between the two leaders, saying “It is expected that major attention will be paid to the current situation in the Middle East, first and foremost in Syria.” Russia is considered to be a staunch supporter of President Assad’s regime and it is thought that Netanyahu will appeal to Putin to pull out of an agreed sale of the S-300 advanced anti-aircraft missile system to the Assad regime. The sophisticated system is capable of intercepting aircraft at a range of over sixty miles and could challenge Israel’s air superiority in the region. Earlier this month, an air strike, assumed to be carried out by Israel, targeted military installations near Damascus, where sophisticated Iranian weaponry was being stored before being transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The addition of the S-300 system to Assad’s arsenal would also complicate any international efforts to intervene more directly with the bloody Syrian conflict. Both Prime Minister David Cameron and US Secretary of State John Kerry have visited Putin in Russia over the last week, in order to strategise over fostering a peaceful resolution to the Syrian conflict. It is thought that Cameron also raised the subject of the S-300 sale with Putin. Cameron discussed his trip to Russia and efforts to coordinate a Syria strategy with the Russian president during a meeting in Washington yesterday with US President Obama. Cameron said that it is vital to “put pressure on Assad so he knows there is no military victory” although he played down the prospects of any immediate progress.