Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday March 5. It is the first visit of a foreign leader to Moscow, linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Israel maintains good relations with the two warring countries. So the Jewish state is trying to mediate.
With our correspondent in Jerusalem, Sami Boukhelifa
Naftali Bennett, a religious Jew, usually conducts no official business on Shabbat, the Saturday day of rest in Judaism. But faced with the exceptional circumstances, the Israeli Prime Minister flew to Moscow, where he spoke with President Vladimir Putin.
This is the first visit to Russia by a foreign leader, linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was in Russia the day after the invasion but his visit was long planned. Few details have leaked out on the exact content of the discussions.
Naftali Bennett’s services did not explicitly mention the Russian invasion, confining themselves to indicating that he had mentioned “ the situation of Israelis and Jewish communities following the conflict “.
In a statement quoted by AFP, the Kremlin said that Vladimir Putin and Bennett had discussed ” different aspects of the situation in Ukraine in the framework of the special military operation of Russia for the protection of Donbass “.
pragmatic stance
Despite the solid alliance with the United States, and the Israeli position in the Western camp, Naftali Bennett has so far refused to condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine. A purely pragmatic position. Israel needs Russia to guarantee its security in the Middle East.
From the first days of the conflict, it was at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Naftali Bennett tried to open a channel for negotiations between Kiev and Moscow. But this dialogue was sharply rejected by Vladimir Putin, according to the Israeli press.
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Interview with President Zelensky
This time, this new diplomatic attempt was coordinated with Washington. The head of the Israeli government coordinated with the United States, Germany and France “Before his meeting with the Russian president, said his services. Naftali Bennett also spoke on the phone with the Ukrainian president before heading to Germany, where he will meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
In Paris, a press release from the presidency claimed that President Emmanuel Macron had “ spoken to the Prime Minister this morning before he left for Moscow in a logic of coordinating efforts to obtain a cessation of fighting. The president told him about his last conversations with President Putin. They will stay in contact with this same objective, which is to obtain a ceasefire, and this also in coordination with Chancellor Scholz. »
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