Russia Open to Coordinating Strikes With US

TEHRAN (Dispatches) - Russia says it is ready to coordinate with the United States in airstrikes against positions of the Takfiri Daesh terrorists in Syria.

Date: 06 October 2015 - 21:29

News ID: ۱۹۱۶۱

Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Tuesday that the Russian military "in principle” agrees with proposals made by the US military on coordinating airstrikes in Syria, Russia’s Tass news agency reported.
Russia has been targeting positions of Daesh in western and northern Syria since September 30. The United States and its allies, including Turkey, have been involved in the so-called campaign against purported Daesh positions in the east.
The comments by Antonov came about a week after defense officials from the US and Russia held a one-hour video teleconference to discuss ways to "deconflict” the Syrian airspace, or prevent unintended air incidents, including collisions. The two sides reportedly failed to reach an agreement and made no clear hint that such a consensus could emerge in the future.
US Army Defense Department spokeswoman Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza said earlier Tuesday that Washington would not coordinate coalition activities in Syria with Russia on the grounds that Russians have ignored a "proposal” on the issue.
The US and its allies in NATO have been critical of Russia’s targeting of the so-called moderate opposition in Syria, although Moscow has denied the charges. The criticism hit a new high on Monday after NATO officials gathered for an emergency meeting in Brussels to discuss Russia’s two reported violations last weekend of Turkey’s airspace, which is a NATO member.
In a separate development, Vladimir Komoyedov, who heads the Defense Committee of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament), said Tuesday that Russia may use its naval forces to establish a blockade along the Syrian coastline to facilitate the delivery of armaments into Syrian territory.
"Regarding the large-scale use of the Black Sea Fleet in this operation, I don’t think it will happen, but in terms of a coastal blockade, I think that it’s quite [possible],” he said, adding, "The delivery of artillery strikes hasn’t been excluded; the ships are ready for this, but there is no point in it for now. The terrorists are in deep, where the artillery cannot reach.”
Russia is currently running a naval facility in the western Syrian province of Tartus, which provides Moscow with access to the Mediterranean Sea. Four Russian warships, including a missile cruiser and a destroyer, are currently deployed in the eastern Mediterranean.

NATO Rejects Russia Explanation on Turkish Air Space

NATO on Tuesday rejected Moscow's explanation that its warplanes violated the air space of alliance member Turkey at the weekend by mistake and said Russia was sending more ground troops to Syria and building up its naval presence.

With Russia extending its air strikes to include the ancient city of Palmyra, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he was losing patience with Russian violations of his country's air space.
"An attack on Turkey means an attack on NATO," Erdogan warned at a Brussels news conference.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had reports of a substantial Russian military build-up in Syria, including ground troops and ships in the eastern Mediterranean.
"I will not speculate on the motives ... but this does not look like an accident and we have seen two of them," Stoltenberg said of the air incursions over Turkey's border with Syria. He noted that they "lasted for a long time".
The incidents, which NATO has described as "extremely dangerous" and "unacceptable", underscore the risks of a further escalation of the Syrian civil war, as Russian and U.S. warplanes fly combat missions over the same country for the first time since World War Two.
The Russian Defense Ministry had said that an SU-30 warplane had entered Turkish air space along the border with Syria "for a few seconds" on Saturday, a mistake caused by bad weather. NATO says a plane also entered Turkish air space on Sunday, an incident Russia says it is looking into.