An earlier meeting between Putin and Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sets off for the Black Sea town of Sochi early next week for a personal call on President Vladimir Putin. This was confirmed Saturday, May 11 by the Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who declined to explain the urgency of the unplanned meeting. DEBKAfile’s Moscow sources report that Netanyahu asked to meet Putin without delay for a last-ditch attempt to persuade him to call off the sale to Syria of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.
Moscow’s decision to sell those weapons to Syria was first revealed by DEBKAfileon May 7.
Our sources now add that the prime minister’s chances of averting the sale are extremely slim. A series of prominent figures have already tried talking the Russian president out of the sale and failed, starting with US Secretary of State John Kerry on May 7, followed Friday May 10 by British premier David Cameron who saw Putin in Sochi and German Foreign Minister Guido Westernwelle who met his Russian opposite number Sergei Lavrov in Warsaw.
They all warned the Russian leader that the delivery of S-300 missiles to Syria would touch off an arms race in Syria and the Middle East with disastrous consequences.
