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Aligned on Syria, Divided on Iran:

Russia, US, & Israel Meet for Trilateral Talks on Middle East

June 26, 2019

 

Russia-us-israel-trilateral-talks over Iran in Syria, Bolton, Nikolai Patrushev, Netanyahu, June 25, 2019

 

Netanyahu boasts ‘100s of anti-Iran ops’ in Syria as Russia reminds to love thy neighbor’s security

Russia TV, 26 June, 2019

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has bragged that the Jewish state has conducted hundreds of operations in Syria in the name of national security, prompting Russia urge him to respect other nations’ sovereignty as well.

Netanyahu made it clear that Israel will stop at nothing to protect itself against any perceived threats, as he boasted about Tel Aviv’s successful raids against alleged Iranian targets in the neighboring Syria.

“Israel has acted hundreds of times to prevent Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria,” he said, speaking ahead of a trilateral meeting between the Russian, American and Israeli national security advisers, who met in Jerusalem on Tuesday to discuss rising tensions in the Middle East and other urgent matters.

“We have acted hundreds of times to prevent Iran from delivering increasingly sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah, or to form a second front in the north against us from the Golan Heights. Israel will continue to prevent Iran from using neighboring territory as platforms to attack us, and Israel will respond forcefully to any such attacks.”

Such belligerent statements did not sit well with the Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, who called on the Israeli PM to respect the security of his neighbors as well, explaining that it was effectively the only way to ensure Israel’s own safety.

“We understand the concerns that Israel has and want those threats to be eliminated,” Patrushev said, explaining that Israel’s security is important for Moscow, but added that “one should also take the national interests of other regional nations into consideration.”

“If we do not … acknowledge and reckon with those interests, I doubt we can achieve any tangible result” in terms of regional security, the Russian Security Council secretary warned.

Aligned on Syria, divided on Iran: Russia, US & Israel meet for trilateral talks on Middle East

Russia TV, 25 June, 2019 20:25

National security advisers from Russia, Israel and the US have met in Jerusalem to discuss the situation in the Middle East. While they have managed to find some common ground on Syria, the talks were marred by disputes over Iran.

US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev met for talks with their Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat in Jerusalem on Tuesday. On the surface, the historic trilateral meeting, that took place at a time when relations between Moscow and Washington are in dire straits, has ended on a positive note as all three sides hailed the fact that they managed to formulate some common goals and find shared interests.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who led the trilateral meeting that lasted for more than two hours, thanked both the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump for agreeing to hold the meeting he called “historic” and said he “deeply values [the] strong relationships” Israel has with both nations. He also praised the deconfliction mechanism established by Israel and Russia “that helps [to] ensure that as we defend ourselves, we do not put Russian forces in harm’s way.”

On Syria

Netanyahu told journalists that all three sides “would like to see a peaceful, stable and secure Syria,” adding that “we also have a common objective to achieve that larger goal, and that is no foreign forces that arrived in Syria after 2011 remain in Syria.” Patrushev then said that he “fully shares” the Israeli prime minister’s position on that issue, adding that it was also equally important to ensure Syria’s national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.

“Syria should not be turned into an arena for geopolitical standoff,” he said. Bolton hailed the talks as “productive.” “Current circumstances in the region make our conversations even more timely,” he said.

On G20

The US national security advisor, who also separately met with Patrushev ahead of the trilateral meeting, said that the talks in Jerusalem might be conducive to the preparations to a meeting between Putin and Trump at the G20 summit later this week.

“President Trump looks forward to meeting with President Putin at the upcoming G20 summit in Osaka, Japan,” Bolton told journalists, adding that he hopes that “we can lay the groundwork for this meeting over the next several days here in Jerusalem.” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said later in Moscow that the Jerusalem talks could be viewed as part of preparations for the meeting between the two leaders in Japan.

On Iran

Still, despite the overall positive tone of the meeting, the sides also had some visible disagreements, particularly when it came to Iran and its activities in the region. Patrushev was particularly critical of the Israeli strikes targeting the Syrian territory, which Tel Aviv justifies by the need to counter the Iranian threat.

The Russian national security adviser called such actions “unwelcome” while saying that many such strikes could have been prevented as the situations that sparked concerns in Israel could have been resolved by non-military means. He also called for easing the tensions between Tel Aviv and Tehran to avoid turning Syria into an arena of a proxy conflict between the two nations.

Moscow also stood firm against demonizing Iran and portraying it as “the chief threat to regional security” at a time when Washington has launched a political and economic crusade against Tehran while calling it “a source of belligerence and aggression” and accusing it of some “provocations” that, according to Bolton, indicate that Tehran still seeks “deliverable nuclear weapons.”

Russia also expressed skepticism over Iran’s alleged responsibility over the latest incidents in the Gulf of Oman, which Washington blames on Tehran. Patrushev dismissed the footage allegedly depicting Iranian sailors removing a malfunctioning limpet mine from the ship’s hull as “low-grade information” that in itself “doesn’t allow for any decisions to be made.”

The US has been blaming Tehran for attacking two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on June 13, which Iran denies, and announced new sanctions in response to Iran downing a US drone they say violated their airspace last week. Washington’s actions sparked a new round of a war of words between Iran and the US.

Russia, US & Israel hold security talks as Middle East turns into ‘battlefield’ against Iran

Russia TV, 25 June, 2019

Blaming Iran for all the problems of the Middle East is just bad policy, Moscow has said as the national security advisers from Russia, Israel and the US meet in Jerusalem to discuss escalating tensions in the region.

“Just like us, Iran is legitimately present on Syrian territory to help fight terrorists, invited by the legitimate Syrian government,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow on Monday, after a meeting with his Egyptian colleague Sameh Shoukry. Much of their press conference was dedicated to another meeting, however, as Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev was in Jerusalem for talks with his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat and US national security advisor John Bolton.

Further meetings between Patrushev, Bolton and Ben-Shabbat are scheduled for Tuesday, and the three are supposed to produce a joint statement.

Bolton was dispatched to Israel while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, after US President Donald Trump decided not to launch an attack on Iran last week. Pompeo’s officially published agenda includes discussions of “dangers posed by Iranian destabilizing activity.” 

This focus on Iran to the exclusion of everything else was “counterproductive,” Lavrov said. "Israel and the Americans are above all concerned with Iran, not just when it comes to Syria but also this region in general, and maybe even in a much wider geographical area."

"We consider it very, very dangerous how the situation is developing in [the Persian Gulf] as well as in Syria,” the top Russian diplomat added. 

There are attempts to turn the territory of Syria into a battlefield between Israel and Iran, between Sunnis and Shia. This is bad and only aggravates the crisis.

He did not name any particular country as the culprit, but the thrust of the remark was perfectly clear. Earlier in the day, Washington announced additional sanctions against Iran, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei personally. 

In his talks with Shoukry, Lavrov expressed concern about the rumored US peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian question, saying that “secretly developed ideas” that reject the two-state solution were a departure from the framework of UN resolutions and other internationally agreed principles.

UN resolutions should also be the basis of resolving the conflict in Syria, Lavrov said, condemning attempts to “encourage separatist tendencies in this or that part of Syria” and interfere with the legitimate government – once again indirectly pointing to the US.

Trump’s refusal to escalate the military confrontation with Tehran – going so far as to question the massive US military presence in the Persian Gulf in a series of tweets on Monday – even as he went along with sanctions and threats, seems to have left Iran hawks such as Bolton and Pompeo painted into a corner. 

Netanyahu is in a similar position. He can’t accuse Trump of insufficient support for Israel after such explicit evidence to the contrary as relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing the Israeli claim to the occupied Golan Heights. He is also in political limbo at home, after failing to form a coalition government and having to call a new general election for September.

This has reduced the Israeli leader to hosting “a Russian victory lap” in Jerusalem while the “emasculated” Bolton looks on, the liberal daily Haaretz noted on Monday. Describing Russia as the rising power in the Middle East due to Washington’s reluctance to launch wars against Syria and Iran, Haaretz argued that Israel and the US have “little choice but to do business” with Moscow. 

Bolton is Trump’s “third national security adviser in two and a half years, and could well be out of a job very soon,” the paper noted. 

https://www.rt.com/search?q=russian+national+security+adviser+in+israel

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