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Netanyahu, Trump discuss Syria, Iran

By REUTERS
July 16, 2018

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he discussed Syria and Iran with US President Donald Trump ahead of the latter´s meeting in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow is the big-power ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose advances against rebel areas close to the Israeli frontier worry the Netanyahu government. The Russians are also regular interlocutors with Iran, an adversary of Israel and the United States that has forces fighting alongside Assad in Syria. In remarks to the Israeli cabinet, Netanyahu said that in a phone conversation on Saturday he and Trump discussed “security and diplomatic issues arising from regional developments, chiefmost among them, of course, Syria and Iran”. Netanyahu said he thanked Trump for his tough stance against Iran.