Russia’s special envoy to Syria secretly paid a visit to Israel

Israeli political sources revealed that Russia’s special envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentie, secretly paid a visit to Israel last Thursday, and met senior officials of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in addition to a Mossad official at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

Haaretz, an Israeli news source, reported a senior official’s declaration that Israel has insured the Russian envoy was informed of “the necessity of freedom of Israeli movements in Syria for the sake of Israel’s security with no restrictions being imposed. The movements include all measures taken to abort any operations targeting Israel from the Golan Heights and to curb any possibility of smuggling any sort of arms or developed weaponry to Hezbollah via Syrian routes.”

Moreover, the Mossad official clarified to the Russian envoy that any future solution to the Syrian crisis must both guarantee and include the terms that stipulate the prohibition of exploiting Syrian grounds as a base for launching direct or indirect attacks on Israel.

Sources also said that in a Tuesday phone call with Netanyahu, Putin vowed that Russia would take Israeli’s interests into consideration before proposing any initiative to resolve the Syrian crisis.

Analysts received the piece of news as political flirtation aiming to facilitate both countries’ tasks in the region.
Meanwhile as coordination marked developments between Tel Aviv and Moscow, escalating tensions underlined the Russian-Turkish relationship.