Following the meeting, Russian Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov gave a press conference and briefly disclosed key points of the meeting.
A number of experts have shared their opinions on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Russia that took place Thursday. The experts speculated about what issues were discussed behind closed doors and whether the visit itself was purely a PR stunt or was caused by actual diplomatic issues at hand.
Reasons Behind Netanyahu's Visit
According to Gilead Sher, an Israeli attorney who served as Chief of Staff and Policy Coordinator to former Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, Ehud Barak, Netanyahu came to Sochi, first and foremost, to demonstrate his personal political significance ahead of upcoming elections.
“One of the main themes in Netanyahu's election campaign is highlighting his achievements in the international arena as well as his personal relationship with other leaders”, he said.
Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy of The Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, Israel, while agreeing that the visit was intended as a political PR stunt, said the prime minister actually had a number of issues related to Israel's national security to discuss with Putin – in particular the “situation in Syria, the position of Russia on the Iranian presence in Syria and Israeli military activity…
