Reports Oct. 6 said that a meeting between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Russian President Vladimir Putin could take place Oct. 22. The reports said that the meeting would focus on Iran and on other strategic regional issues. Still, it seems that the date has not been finalized yet for a Bennett visit to Moscow, and could be postponed. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid visited Moscow Sept. 9 and met there with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. The possibility of a Bennett-Putin meeting was discussed on that occasion, but without naming a date.
At his September meeting with Lavrov, Lapid referred to recent reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about Iran, saying, “The two [IAEA] reports are damning. They include serious violations. Fraud, deception and outright lies. The picture is clear and very worrying. A rapidly advancing nuclear program without any effective supervision. The message to Iran must be loud and it must be clear. Iran's march toward a nuclear weapon is not only an Israeli problem. It's a problem for the entire world."
