We can not force Iran out of Syria

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Russia can not compel Iranian forces to quit Syria, Moscow's ambassador to Tel Aviv said on Monday, rebuffing Israel's long-standing demand that it should work to their total withdrawal from the country.

Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov said Moscow could do nothing to prevent Israeli military forces against Iranian forces in Syria, which along with Russia and Tehran-backed Lebanese militias are supporting President Bashar al-Assad in combating rebel fighters.

With Assad now in almost complete control of the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights, Viktorov told Israel's Channel 10 television in an interview that Syrian army troops should be deployed there.

Last week an Israeli official said Russia had offered to keep Iranian forces at least 100 km (60 miles) from the Golan Heights ceasefire line. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visiting Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, but Israel rejected it as insufficient, the official said.

Viktorov defended the Iranians' presence in Syria.

"They are playing a very, very important role in our common and joint effort to eliminate terrorists in Syria. That is why, for us, we do not expect the Syrian Arab Republic, "he said.

"We can talk with our Iranian partners very frankly and openly, trying to persuade them to do something," he said. But we can not say "We can not."

While formally neutral in the seven-year-old civil war, Israel Iranian or Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas in Syria, apparently unimpeded by the Russian defense systems deployed there.

A military hotline Israel and Russia set up in 2015 to avoid inadvertently clashing over Syria.

Viktorov expressed disapproval of the attacks on Syria, but added: "We do not dictate to Israel how to proceed … Israel to do anything, or to prohibit Israel to do anything."