“The weapons are highly effective and very accurate, and hit targets precisely”.
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“We would welcome constructive contributions from the Russians to the anti-ISIL coalition“, Earnest said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
The announcement came as the Kremlin denied a claim by a senior negotiator that Russian Federation had offered in 2012 to make Syria’s president step down in an “elegant way”, saying it never called for regime change.
Carter told Shoigu that future consultations would run in parallel “with diplomatic talks that would ensure a political transition in Syria”, Cook said.
“He will describe the threats to Israel following the military reinforcement in the Syrian arena and the supply of weapons to Hezbollah and other terrorist organisations”. The conflict in which Syria is mired began in March 2011, when a series of protests broke out against the Assad government.
In comments today, Secretary of State John Kerry reported that Russian Federation has approached the administration about holding talks on military cooperation in the war against ISIS in Syria.
Kerry did not indicate whether the talks covered the US-led fight against Islamic State jihadists, who hold a wide swath of territory in Syria and Iraq.
“They agreed to further discuss mechanisms for deconfliction in Syria and the counter-ISIL campaign”, he added, referring to the Islamic State group. The U.S. believes he is part of the problem and rejects that idea. Since that time, some 220,000 people have been killed and more than four million have become refugees in neighbouring countries, along with 7.6 million who have been internally displaced, according to United Nations calculations. The Syrian city of Al-Raqqa is the de-facto capital of the Islamic State.
The TV didn’t elaborate on where exactly the new weapons were deployed.
“The coalition has failed and has no real impact on the ground”, he said.
Kerry also said he had spoken on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose office announced earlier that he would visit Moscow next week to discuss Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
U.S. officials said on Wednesday the United States had identified a small number of Russian helicopters at a Syrian airfield.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said there can be no political solution for his country’s crisis until “terrorism” is defeated. “In fact, the army has started using some of these types”, said the Reuters source.
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Syrian officials say the Russian military presence is restricted to experts.
