IRNA � US national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday that President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are to discuss Iran�s presence in Syria during their upcoming meeting in Finland.


In an interview with CBS, he added, �Well we'll see what happens when the two of them get together. There are possibilities for doing a larger negotiation on helping to get Iranian forces out of Syria and back into Iran which would be a significant step forward.�

The issue of Syria has been something that's been going on now for nearly seven years, this conflict in Syria. But the Iranian presence now across Iraq and Syria really reaching into Lebanon and their connection with Hezbollah which has been an Iranian subsidiary from the outset, he said.

Asked whether Assad won the war, Bolton said, �Well I don't think Assad is the strategic issue. I think Iran is the strategic issue.�

It's not just their continuing nuclear weapons program it's their massive support for international terrorism and their conventional forces in the Middle East, he said.

Trump and Putin are to meet in Helsinki on July 16.