Russian Federation has informed the United States that Moscow is willing to continue talks to ensure that the two countries’ aircraft don’t interfere with each other over Syria, senior US military officials said Tuesday.
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Turkey warned that “Russia would be held responsible” for future intrusions, a Turkish official said.
While Moscow says its intervention targets the hardline Islamic State fighters who control much of eastern and northern Syria, numerous Russian strikes so far have hit rival insurgent forces opposed to Assad.
Turkey has twice summoned the Russian ambassador – once over the first violation which occurred on October 3, and then over a second violation that took place on October 4. A Turkish jet was shot down by the Syrian Air Force in 2012 over the Mediterranean and earlier this year Turkey shot down a Syrian helicopter which Ankara said had violated its airspace.
A no-fly zone would breach Syrian sovereignty and “isn’t based on the UN Charter and global law”, deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who is Russia’s special presidential envoy for the Middle East, said in an interview published on Tuesday by the Interfax news service. But the US and France say at least a few of the strikes appear to have hit Western-backed rebel factions fighting government troops, with the real goal of protecting Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Russia’s defence ministry said it agreed in principle with USA. proposals on coordinating military flights in Syria.
The same message was also relayed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov by his Turkish counterpart in a telephone conversation, the statement said. Earnest Russian Federation giving support to the Assad regime, he stressed himself more drawn into the Syrian civil war.
Islamic State fighters captured Palmyra in May, and their latest assault on city’s cultural treasures destroyed the 2,000-year-old Arch of Triumph on Sunday. Moscow says it is looking into the most recent allegation, Reuters news agency reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that civilians have been killed by Russian strikes in the past week, but evidence on the ground has indicated otherwise. USA officials referred to it as a deliberate provocation.
But the USA role in Syria has itself been criticized as ineffectual.
Iran, Syria, Iraq and Russian Federation launched a new cooperation scheme last week to counter the Islamic State group and other armed extremist forces now operating in Syrian territory. It also put the city’s Roman-era ruins under the militants’ control.
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So far, according to Russian defence ministry statements, it has carried out roughly 20 sorties per day.
