By all accounts, the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Sochi, which went on for five hours — about three hours longer than originally planned — was warm and friendly, despite the difficult issues—primarily on Iran and Syria—that exist between Israel and Russia. “As you may know, we are making efforts to restore and strengthen Syrian statehood,” Putin said upon welcoming Bennett. “There are problems in this regard, and they are numerous. But there are also points of contact and opportunities for cooperation, especially where matters related to fighting terrorism are involved.” In his remarks, Bennett replied that “We will certainly discuss the situation in Syria and the ongoing efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear programme.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said afterwards, “They had a long, constructive and trust-based conversation.”
“The meeting was as warm and intimate as any over the last decade,” said Israeli Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin, who acted as translator, in a press briefing following the meeting, reported Israel media. “The dialogue between the prime minister and the president was very warm, they also spoke on personal matters.” He also said that the two held “deep” discussions on Iran’s nuclear program and a “very wide” conversation on maintaining the deconfliction mechanism between the IDF and the Russian military in Syria, where Israel continues a bombing campaign against what it sees as an Iranian military buildup along weapons transfers to Lebanese Hezbollah. “It was decided to keep policies (the deconfliction mechanism) vis-à-vis Russia in place in Syrian territory,” Elkin said in a statement.
Bennett later called the talks “excellent,” and said they were “extremely in-depth.”
“Russia is a very important player in our region, a kind of neighbor for us in the north,” Bennett said, referring to the Russian military presence in Syria. “As such, our relationship with Russia is strategic, but also on an almost daily basis, and we need to maintain this direct and intimate discourse,” Bennett wrote in a Facebook post. “With the Sochi beach in the background, Putin and I spoke about a wide range of issues, from his special relationship with the Jewish people to ways to deal with Islamic fundamentalism.”
A translation of their remarks to each other is posted on the Kremlin website: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66978
