International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, 21 Aug 2008

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev phoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday to assure that his nation’s ties with Israel remained steady despite recent tensions created by the IDF’s training and equipping of the Georgian army. Yet Medvedev also welcomed Syrian President Bashar Assad to his Black Sea dachau on Thursday to discuss advanced arms sales to Damascus and even an appeal to place Russian missile batteries on Syrian soil.

Ahead of his two-day visit to Russia, Assad has been openly touting his plans to ask Moscow for advanced weapons systems, which are reported to include the Pantsyr-S1 air defense missile system, the BUK-M1 surface-to-air medium-range missile system, military aircraft and other hardware. He even voiced confidence his shopping list for new weapons would be filled by Moscow in light of Israel’s arms shipments to Georgia.

Yesterday, Assad went even further and offered to host Russian surface-to-surface Iskander missiles in Syria, in response to the deal signed by Washington and Warsaw this week to deploy elements of an American missile defense system in Poland. That move has aggravated Moscow's relations with the West, and the Kremlin indicated today that it was suspending all contacts with NATO until further notice.

Asked about the Syrian offer to deploy the Iskander, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "We are ready to consider requests from the Syrian side on buying more arms. We are indeed prepared to sell only defensive weapons which are not breaking the regional balance of powers."

Both Israel and the US are watching Assad's visit to Moscow with concern. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters in Jerusalem today that Syria's links with Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah are reasons for Russia to avoid transferring missiles and other advanced arms to Damascus.

Meanwhile, Assad backed Russia's recent invasion of Georgia at his talks with Medvedev today, saying, "I want to express my support for the Russian position in [the breakaway regions of] Abkhazia and South Ossetia... We believe Russia was responding to the Georgian provocation."

Syria thus becomes only the second country after Belarus to voice public support for Russia's military operations against its small democratic neighbor in the Caucasus.

Israeli officials said they expected Russia to be a "responsible" player on the Middle East scene, but Bar-Ilan University strategic expert Prof. Ephraim Inbar called that "wishful thinking," saying that after Israel provided weapons to Georgia and the US signed a missile accord with Poland, "Russia now feels that it has a free hand to do what it likes."

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