| |
| |
![]() |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
JERUSALEM: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to discuss Middle East peace efforts and the crisis in Georgia, the premier's spokesman said on Thursday.
The ties between the two states were strained when Russia accused the Jewish state of training Georgian army forces and supplying it with weapons that were used during the war in the Caucasus.
"Russia's President Dmitri Medvedev called Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday evening. The two discussed in length several regional and bilateral issues," spokesman Mark Regev said.
The two leaders discussed developments in the Middle East peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad will meet Medvedev in Moscow on Thursday, Regev said.
Assad's visit raised concern in Israel that Moscow could offer Syria arms deals in retaliation for the Jewish state's military assistance to Georgia.
Damascus is a Soviet-era ally of Moscow, which maintained a naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus starting in the 1970s. Russian media have speculated in recent years that Moscow is hoping to revive the base.
- AFP/yb
|
