Israel-Russia-US security summit to be held in Jerusalem

The city of Jerusalem is set to host a trilateral meeting of top security officials from Israel, Russia and the US next month, the White House announced yesterday.

In a statement the White House press secretary said that “in June, United States National Security Adviser Ambassador John Bolton, Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, and Russian Secretary of the Security Council Nikolay Patrushev will meet in Jerusalem, Israel, to discuss regional security issues.”

Among the prominent issues that will be discussed in the trilateral summit are those of the events in the conflict in Syria, the withdrawal of US troops from the war-torn country, and the Iranian threat in the region. These issues have been central to the three countries, all having their own stakes in the region: the US fought against Daesh and in support of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Russia supports and backs the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and is invested in the ongoing assault on Idlib province, and Israel is focused on expelling Iran from Syria having conducted air strikes against Iranian targets previously.

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The statement came just minutes before the Israeli Knesset voted to dissolve itself and to schedule new elections for 17 September, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to establish a governing coalition.

Following the disbanding of the Knesset, an allegedly upset Netanyahu announced the trilateral summit in his speech, stating that “we have a lot of things that we want to do…This is what we want to do, not unnecessary elections…This has never happened in the history of Israel that the two great superpowers chose to come here to discuss amongst them and with us issues that are critical for our security.”