Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Putin To Meet With Netanyahu Five Days Before Trump Meeting



Putin to meet Netanyahu five days before Trump



Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Moscow next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, just five days before Putin is scheduled to meet in Helsinki with US President Donald Trump.
The issues that will dominate Netanyahu’s talks with Putin – Iran and Syria – are also expected to be high on the list of topics to be discussed when the Russian and US leaders hold their first summit.

Netanyahu’s meeting with Putin comes just two months after the prime minister last flew to Moscow to discuss the situation in Syria, and comes amid growing concerns in Jerusalem about the situation in southwestern Syria, where Syrian President Bashar Assad, together with Russian air support and Iranian backed Shi’ite militias, are poised to regain control of the area.

Netanyahu made clear Tuesday during a speech at the state memorial service for Theodor Herzl that Israel will strictly enforce the separation of forces agreement it has with Syria from 1974, and expects others to adhere to that agreement as well.

At a speech an hour later at a US Embassy party in Airport City to celebrate July 4th, Netanyahu praised Trump for withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying this was the “greatest thing for the security of the world and for the security of Israel.”

But, Netanyahu said, “this is not yet universally accepted.”

Netanyahu noted that the other world powers who were involved in the JCPOA – France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia – are to meet on Friday in Vienna with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss “how to go around the decision that President Trump and the United States made to leave this bad deal, which is funding Iran’s terrorism and aggression with billions of dollars.”


“This Iranian terror plot was planned on the soil of Europe on the same week that the European leaders are supposed to meet the president of Iran about circumventing the sanctions on Iran. Here is my message to European leaders,” Netanyahu said, “stop funding the very regime that is sponsoring terrorism against you and so many others. Stop appeasing Iran.”

Netanyahu said Israel very much appreciates the position Trump has taken on Iran, as well as the defense the US now provides Israel at the UN “day in, and day out,” and the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem after declaring the city Israel’s capital.

“We have relations with a 160 countries, and some of these are terrific friends, but there is no friendship like the friendship between Israel and the United States of America,” he said.


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