Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he told Russia’s vice premier in talks on Tuesday that Israel must continue to hit hostile targets in neighboring Syria, despite Moscow’s decision to equip Damascus with advanced air defense missiles.
Netanyahu said at a press conference that he told Maxim Akimov in talks in Jerusalem that Israel would continue to fight what it says are Iranian attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria and channel advanced weaponry to its Lebanese ally, the Hezbollah terror group.
Despite the delivery of the S-300 air defense systems to the Syrian military, Israel was committed as a matter of self-defense to continue its “legitimate activity in Syria against Iran and its proxies, which state their intention to destroy us,” Netanyahu said.
Israeli planes have carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria against what it says are Iranian and Hezbollah targets, but there have been no reports of suspected Israeli airstrikes since the accidental Syrian downing of a Russian plane during an Israeli air strike in Syria, an incident that raised tensions between Israel and Russia.
Fifteen Russians were killed in the September 17 incident that Moscow blamed on Israel, accusing its pilots of using the larger Russian plane as cover.
Israel disputes the Russian findings and says its jets were back in Israeli airspace when the plane was downed.
In response, Moscow announced new measures to protect its military in Syria, including equipping Damascus with S-300 air defense systems.
The meeting was the first public sit-down between a senior Russian official and Netanyahu since the incident.
Russia and Israel set up a hotline in 2015 to avoid accidental clashes in Syria, but the new measures have led to concern among Israelis that their strikes will now be limited there.
A senior Iranian official on Monday said Israel would be hard-pressed to conduct airstrikes in Syria after Russia provided the country with the advanced S-300 air defense system.
“I do not believe the Israelis are able to undertake any serious steps. It is Russia’s right to deploy the S-300 system in Syria and defend its interests, especially after the Israeli attack on the Russian plane,” Ali Larijani, Iranian speaker of the parliament, told the Kremlin-controlled Russia Today TV station.
“This is a legitimate right of Russia,” he said, speaking to the outlet’s Arabic channel, on the sidelines of the Speakers of Eurasia Countries’ Parliaments conference in Turkey.
Russia delivered a number of S-300 batteries to Syria — something it had agreed to do five years ago, but repeatedly postponed in accordance with Israel’s requests.
Also on Monday, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported that Moscow had provided the advanced S-300 air defense system to Syria’s military free of charge, transferring three battalions with eight launchers each to the Assad regime.
“On October 1, three battalion sets of S-300PM systems of eight launchers each were delivered to Syria,” a military source told the agency.
The S-300 system, considered one of the most advanced in the world, has a radius of some 200 kilometers, meaning a battery placed near Damascus would cover much of Israel.
Last Thursday, US General Joseph Votel, who heads the US Central Command, called the Russian S-300 deployment in Syria a “needless escalation.”
Moscow has reportedly been working to open avenues of communication between Jerusalem and Tehran to reduce tensions and friction in Syria. Citing a senior Russian source, the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported Saturday that this came in light of Moscow’s decision to provide the Assad regime with the S-300.
No comments:
Post a Comment