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Netanyahu, Putin discuss Syria and terror days after Kuntar killing
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone yesterday with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Statements on behalf of both leaders said that they are continuing their dialogue over Syria and fighting terror.
In September, Netanyahu visited Moscow with the IDF Chief of Staff and met with Putin and Russian military chiefs to agree a mechanism which would avoid any accidental confrontations between Israeli and Russian air forces, following Moscow’s deployment in Syria. Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon has since confirmed that in at least one instance, Russian jets have entered Israeli air space without incident.
A Kremlin statement yesterday said that “Vladimir Putin stressed… the continued and uncompromising fight against Islamic State and other extremist groups acting in Syria.” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked whether Moscow had been informed ahead of what is claimed to have been an Israeli air strike in Syria on Sunday, which killed notorious Hezbollah-affiliated terrorist Samir Kuntar. Peskov merely confirmed that “There is a working mechanism of information exchanges between the general staffs. It is the military who should be addressed with this question and asked if there had been any prior notifications on that score.”
The Netanyahu-Putin conversation also comes with Israel currently in talks with Turkey to restore diplomatic ties between the two countries, which were ended five years ago. Russia’s relations with Turkey have been poor since Turkey shot down a Russian jet over Syria last month.
Yesterday’s phone call also coincided with an official state visit to Israel by Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko. Russia and Ukraine are involved in a bitter and bloody dispute over Ukraine’s eastern border. Poroshenko met with both Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem yesterday, commenting “Although our stories are different we have many similarities, one of which is about building up a successful state against turbulent regional realities, and under continuous attack from terrorism.”