From The Moscow Times
Vladimir Putin will visit Israel next month in one of his first foreign visits as president, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.
“The information we have received from Russia shows that the visit will take place in June,” Lieberman said in an interview published Wednesday in Moskovsky Komsomolets.
He said the exact date for the visit would be decided after Putin’s inauguration on May 7.
He gave no further information about the trip, which unidentified sources in his ministry first leaked to Israeli media in March.
But Syria and Iran will almost certainly lead Putin’s agenda. Russia has long been a strong ally of both countries, which are among Israel’s staunchest enemies and are under increasing international pressure — Syria for a violent crackdown on the opposition and Iran for a nuclear program that Israel, the United States and other countries fear is designed to build a bomb.
When Putin last visited Israel in April 2005, he defended Russian arms sales to Syria and the shipment of nuclear components to Iran, saying they posed no threat to Israel’s security.
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