The United States believes Russia may be more amenable than in the past to addressing U.S. and Israeli concerns about Iran’s influence, including in Syria, when national security leaders meet in Jerusalem this month, a U.S. official said on Tuesday, Trend reports citing Reuters.
The United States announced last week that John Bolton, White House national security adviser, would meet his Israeli and Russian counterparts in Jerusalem in June. But it provided no details about the meeting, which comes at a moment of heightened tension between Washington and Tehran.
The senior Trump administration official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, described the meeting as an “unprecedented diplomatic opportunity” for discussions on Syria - where all three countries have been involved militarily.
But beyond discussions to prevent any unintended military escalation, the U.S. official said the goal of the talks would be “to see how we can potentially work together to get rid of the primary irritant in the Middle East, which is the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
U.S. aspirations for Russian support in is effort to roll back Iranian influence are nothing new. Russia has long been publicly dismissive of such rhetoric, including on Syria, where Moscow and Tehran have both acted militarily on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s civil war.