On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Russia's resort of Sochi for a three-hour conversation with President Putin. Some experts suggested that they talked about Syria and Iran, however renowned geopolitical expert and author William Engdahl explained to Sputnik Radio what was actually on the agenda.

The meeting was Benjamin Netanyahu’s fourth visit to Russia over the past sixteen months.

"In my view, the meeting between the Israeli Prime Minister and Vladimir Putin is a vain attempt by Netanyahu to create a de-facto recognition of the illegal Israeli (and it is illegal by the UN mandates and international law) occupation of the Golan Heights by Israeli Defense Forces," William Engdahl told Sputnik.

There is a deeper issue, he went on. It is that the Israeli daughter company of New Jersey oil company Genie Energy two and a half years ago discovered what they believe is a vast deep reservoir of crude oil in the Golan Heights. If we watch very closely the Israeli activities in the Golan Heights since that time, Netanyahu pleaded with Barack Obama, when he was president, to recognize the Israeli illegal occupation of the Golan Heights as a de-facto reality in the midst of the war, he said.

Now, with Russian backing, the Syrian government is re-defining its sovereign borders with Jordan and Israel and that, under the UN charter is the sovereign right of the Syrian government, he said.

"What Netanyahu is trying to do here, is a rather slimy maneuver and I think that Russia is not at all amused by the manipulations. That is really the agenda," William Engdahl told Sputnik.

He further recalled that Benjamin Netanyahu was turned down cold by Donald Trump in Washington days earlier in an attempt to get US backing to recognize the Israeli rights in the Golan Heights and now he is trying with Russia.

Commenting on the Russia-Israeli dialogue on Syria, the geopolitical expert said that on the part of Russia, it is simply a pragmatic dialogue aimed at preventing any armed clashes and beyond this he sees little deepness in the cooperation between Netanyahu government and Russia.