Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday for talks expected to focus on Moscow’s reported plans to deliver advanced S-300 antimissile batteries to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime ally of Russia.
The meeting is taking place in the Black Sea city of Sochi. Netanyahu is expected to return to Israel in the afternoon before the onset of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.
The Israeli premier will be accompanied on a small executive plane by his National Security Council head Yaakov Amidror, his military secretary Maj.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, and a few other senior officials from the Prime Minister’s Office.
The meeting will be “mainly focused on the worsening situation in Syria,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The U.S. has asked Russia not to sell advanced weapons systems to the Syrian government, which has fought rebel groups in a two-year civil war that has left more than 70,000 dead, according to the United Nations. US Secretary of State John Kerry has said such a sale would be "potentially destabilizing."
Netanyahu’s visit comes amid new diplomatic pushes to discuss the Syrian crisis with Moscow.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to travel to Russia later this week.
The US State Department said on May 13 that talks sponsored by Moscow and Washington on Syria would probably take place in June.
Netanyahu’s meeting with Putin comes also just days after he returned from a five-day visit to China, which included a meeting with President Xi Jinping.