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Israel in Moscow talks to halt supply of missiles to Syrian regime

All4Syria website published parts of an article published by the Guardian on a visit of an Israeli delegation to Moscow, as a last-ditch attempt to talk the Kremlin out of supplying sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to the Assad regime
Israel in Moscow talks to halt supply of missiles to Syrian regime

All4Syria website published parts of an article published by the Guardian on a visit of an Israeli delegation to Moscow.

 

Top-level Israeli intelligence figures flew into Moscow on Tuesday night in a last-ditch attempt to talk the Kremlin out of supplying sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to the Assad regime, which once installed in Syria would have the range and power to target civilian and military aircraft over Tel Aviv.

 

Israeli diplomats will continue to work both privately and publicly to prevent the transfer until the shipment sails, but officials attempted to lower the diplomatic temperature, insisting Israel had no intention of fighting Russia on the issue.

 

Israel has read Moscow's insistence on pursuing its deal to supply Damascus with the powerful missile systems as part of a "cold war" power struggle between the US and Russia playing out in the theatre of the Syrian civil war in which it wants no part.

 

"We are unhappy with the prospect of these very serious weapons arriving in Syria but we cannot stop Russia delivering them to the Middle East. We would not strike a Russian target – our egos are big but they're not that big," one senior Israeli diplomat told the Guardian on condition of anonymity.

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