BICOM

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on getting Iran out of Syria when they met in Helsinki, according to White House sources.

A Reuters report quotes a White House official who claimed that Trump and Putin discussed the Iranian presence in Syria during their one-to-one meeting at the Helsinki summit in July and agreed on the need to remove Iranian forces from Syria. According to the report, the leaders agreed “in principle” that Iran should not remain in Syria, but Putin believed any attempt to push Iran out would be a “tough task”.

Russia has so far promised Israel that it will hold Iran’s forces at a distance of 85 kilometres from the Israeli-Syrian border. Haaretz reported yesterday that the Iranians have kept that promise so far, with one important exception – the area of Damascus which includes a number of Iranian bases that house Iranian personnel and weapons.

The White House official quoted in the report also said US National Security Adviser John Bolton is due to meet Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia’s Security Council, in Geneva next week to discuss Syria, focusing on Iran’s presence in the country and the issue of chemical weapons. On Tuesday, the Trump administration said that Bolton would visit Israel next week.

In June, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Iran’s presence in Syria was non-negotiable but insisted that Iran has no fixed military bases in Syria. Assad told Iranian channel al-Alam News that Iran would stay until “Hezbollah, Iran, or others believe that terrorism has been eliminated”.

Also in June, Russian Ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, said that Moscow could not compel Iran to leave Syria.

In a briefing published in July, BICOM Visiting Senior Fellow Michael Herzog said Russia’s implicit message to Israel is: “We’ll take care of Iran in the south. As for the rest of Syria, we leave it to you to take action against the Iranians, if you deem it necessary.”