Syria and US military aid at center of Obama-Netanyahu summit

In a briefing to Israeli correspondents, Prime Minister Binyamin reported Monday that he had stressed in his conversation with President Barack Obama that any international deal on Syria’s future must take Israel’s interests into account. The meeting at the White House lasted two and a half hours and showed every sign of being amicable. The Syrian conflict including Russia’s military intervention and the war on ISIS were the main topics of their discussion. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry briefed the prime minister on the Vienna conference conducted two weeks ago on a political resolution of the Syrian crisis. Netanyahu emphasized that Israel reserved red lines against attacks being staged from Syrian soil and the opening of an Iranian anti-Israel front from the Syrian Golan. He said Israel would continue to thwart weapons transfers from Syria to Lebanon. The two leaders also raised the 10-year US defense security aid package and agreed that an American team would visit Israel next month to discuss this with an Israeli national security team at the Prime Minister’s Office.