JERUSALEM — Israel has quietly resigned itself to a Russian sale of SA-18 surface-to-air missiles to Syria.

Israeli officials said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has responded to the appeals of Russian President Vladimir Putin to avoid a crisis over Moscow's weapons agreement with Damascus. Officials said the Sharon government agreed to work with Putin to ensure that Syria would not transfer the SA-18 to Hizbullah or Palestinian insurgents.

"There's no crisis with Russia," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said on Thursday.

Shalom said Israel has requested that Russia suspend an agreement to sell the SA-18 to Syria, said to have been concluded in early January. He said Syria has been a leading weapons supplier of Hizbullah, which has amassed an estimated 15,000 rockets and missiles along the Lebanese border with Israel.

Officials said Sharon wanted to avoid a crisis with Russia to avoid harming a range of interests. They cited Israeli-Russian cooperation in the fields of counter-insurgency, defense, energy and trade.

Russia's Ilyushin has been selected to supply three Il-76 air transports as the platforms for Israel's Phalcon airborne early-warning system. India has ordered three Phalcons along with the Il-76 platforms in a $1.1 billion purchase, the biggest defense export deal in Israeli history.

Officials said Sharon agreed to Russia's offer for guarantees that Syria would not transfer the SA-18 to insurgency groups. They said Sharon plans to involve the United States in any monitoring of SA-18 deployment in Syria.

"The prime minister realized that he was putting Putin in a corner and that wasn't the intent," an official said. "We'll deal with this issue quietly."

Officials said Sharon plans to discuss with Putin the proposed SA-18 sale to Syria before Assad's arrival to Russia. They said Sharon would stress Israel's determination to expand relations with Moscow.

Israel's Defense Ministry and military have warned of the introduction of the SA-18 into Syria. Officials said the military assessed that either Iran or Syria would transfer the SA-18 to Hizbullah or Palestinian insurgents. They said Syria itself would not be significantly bolstered by the SA-18 deal.

"There is no significant change in the parameters here," [Res.] Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, former head of the Defense Ministry's Defense Research Directorate, said.

Officials said Iran, believed to be financing the Syrian purchase, would also acquire SA-18 systems. The SA-18, which has not been exported to the Levant, has a range of 5.2 kilometers and a far greater accuracy than older Soviet-origin man-portable anti-aircraft systems. They said the key threat of the SA-18 was to passenger aircraft to and from Israel.

In 2002, Iran was said to have reached agreement with Russia for the delivery of 700 SA-18 systems. Most of the systems were not delivered because of what was said to have been U.S. pressure on Russia.