Russia to Judge Israel’s Implementation of Syrian Agreements by Actions - Lavrov

Russia will judge the implementation of the Russian-Israeli cooperation agreement on Syria by Israel’s actions, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — He added that during Netanyahu’s last visit to Russia earlier in March, the agreement between him and Putin had been clearly and fully confirmed, and that Russia "will judge how accurately this arrangement is carried out by our Israeli partners not on the basis of what they say but how they act," Lavrov stressed.

"During Israel’s prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu's] second to latest visit to Moscow he and President [of Russia Vladimir] Putin achieved a clear agreement about the way Russian and Israeli militaries could cooperate in relation to the situation in Syria," Lavrov said, commenting on last week's Israeli strikes on the Syrian Armed Forces posts near Damascus.

On Thursday, Israeli forces conducted a series of airstrikes which targeted a convoy carrying weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shia militant group which fights on the side of the Syrian government in the country’s civil war. Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization in Israel. The strikes then prompted retaliatory attacks from the Syrian army.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel would continue its efforts to prevent attempts at arming Hezbollah, and threatened to destroy Syrian ballistic missile defense squadrons if they prevented Israeli forces from carrying out their goal.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, in turn, pointed out that Syria would not base its policies on such statements and expressed hope that Russia's influence would stop Israel from carrying out the strikes.