by Shlomo Cesana, Eli Leon, Erez Linn, Lilach Shoval, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says it is actually the actions of the U.S.-led coalition in support of Syrian rebels that are "illegitimate"
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Hezbollah forces in
Western Qalamoun, Syria
Photo: Reuters
The
understandings recently reached between Russia and the United States,
laying out principles for postwar Syria, do not include a stipulation to
withdraw pro-Iranian forces from Syria and, in fact, they recognize
Iran's presence in Syria as legitimate, Moscow's Interfax news agency
quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying Tuesday.
The agreement,
announced in a joint U.S.-Russian statement on Saturday, confirmed the
importance of "de-escalation areas" as an interim step toward reducing
violence, enforcing cease-fire agreements, facilitating humanitarian aid
and setting conditions for the "ultimate political solution" to a war
that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since it began in 2011.
It also affirmed what it said was a
U.S.-Russian-Jordanian understanding calling for "the reduction and
ultimate elimination, of foreign forces and foreign fighters from the
area to ensure a more sustainable peace."
A U.S. State Department official said
Russia had agreed "to work with the Syrian regime to remove
Iranian-backed forces a defined distance" from the Golan Heights border
with Israel. Israel has repeatedly declared that it will not tolerate an
Iranian presence near its border.
Israeli officials offered a lukewarm
reception to the American-Russian deal, as according to defense
officials, while the agreement intends to keep rival factions inside
Syria away from each other, it would effectively keep Iranian-linked forces
anywhere between 5 and 30 kilometers (3 and 18 miles) from the
Syria-Israel border, depending on current rebel positions on the Syrian
Golan Heights.
On Sunday, following the announcement of
the understandings, Israel signaled that it would keep up military
strikes meant to thwart the delivery of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as to prevent any encroachment by Iranian-allied forces.
According to Tuesday's report, Lavrov noted
that while the Iranian presence in Syria, meant to prop up President
Bashar Assad, was "legitimate and done at the invitation of the legal
government," the presence of the U.S.-led coalition in the war-torn
country was "illegitimate."
"The U.S.-led coalition carries out
military operations that support armed rebel groups operating in Syria,"
he said, adding that made the United States "the bigger threat" to
Syria's future stability.
The Russian foreign minister said Moscow
and Washington had not discussed the withdrawal of pro-Iranian forces in
Syria, including Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
"We did not talk about Iranian or
pro-Iranian forces," he said, "If we did, some would say we should call
the Syrian forces pro-Iranian forces. Should they also be made to lay
down their arms?"
Lavrov said that Russian officials held
"informal talks with Israel in consideration of the fact that the area
[in southwestern Syria] is in direct proximity to the Golan Heights."
Despite a U.S. State Department statement
saying Iranian presence in Syria would be temporary, Lavrov stressed
that at no point of the negotiations with the U.S. did Russia promise to
work toward the withdrawal of pro-Iranian forces from Syria.
"All we said was that we would ask non-Syrian units to pull out of the battles in some area," he said.
Officials at the Prime Minister's Office
said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear to Moscow
that "Israel will continue to put its own security interests first,
under any circumstances."
Netanyahu stressed that Israel "will not
accept or tolerate Iranian military buildup in Syria. We defend our
borders, we defend our country and we will continue to do so. I have
made it clear to our friends – first and foremost in Washington and also
in Moscow – that Israel will act in Syria, including in southern Syria,
as we see fit and in accordance with our security needs."
A senior defense official told Israel Hayom
Tuesday that Israel was "not bound by the American-Russian
understandings on Syria. As far as we are concerned we are free to make
our own decisions in accordance with Israeli interests."
A delegation of senior American defense
officials was scheduled to arrive in Israel Wednesday for meetings with
National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and other top Israeli
military and intelligence officials.
The meetings are expected to focus on the superpowers' Syria understandings.
Shlomo Cesana, Eli Leon, Erez Linn, Lilach Shoval, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2017/11/15/russia-iranian-presence-near-syria-israel-border-legitimate/
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