Israel in diplomatic offensive about Iran

tel aviv/berlin - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to Europe next week to talk with leaders about the threat Iran would pose. On Monday he will speak with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and in the evening he will go to Paris for consultation with the French president Emmanuel Macron.

A meeting with the British government leader Theresa May may also follow. Wednesday Netanyahu returns home.

Israel has repeatedly argued that it does not tolerate Iran's military presence in Syria. In the course of the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, predominantly Shiite Iran has acted as a crucial ally of the regime of President Assad and sent military personnel.

The Iranian-backed Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah has also played a key role in the fight against rebels that mainly consist of Sunni extremists in Syria. Assad is not a Sunnite, but a member of a religious minority.

Iran is in the war on the same side as Russia that Assad rescued militarily from ruin. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman speaks in Moscow on Thursday with his Russian colleague Sergey Sjoigoe about the Iranian presence in Syria.

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