Toner said that beyond the question of Russia’s use of a base in Iran, its air strikes often “indiscriminately” hit civilian targets and moderate Syrian opposition groups.
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Tuesday’s missions were unprecedented.
Iran allowing Russian warplanes to take off from its territory to bomb targets in Syria was an unprecedented move, underscoring the deepening cooperation between two powerhouses heavily invested in the Syrian civil war.
“It is not guaranteed that Russia needs Incirlik, but such a decision can be regarded as Turkey’s real readiness to cooperate with Russia in the fight against terrorism in Syria, and not just pay lip service”, Ozerov said, according to the Russian state-funded Sputnik website.
The negotiations have dragged on for weeks. “An alliance with Moscow, and letting the Russians use its bases, is a clear message from Tehran that it will do whatever it takes to serve its interests in the region”.
“The Russians are showing they have options in Syria while they have Washington over a barrel on Aleppo”, said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The presence of the bombers is a visible demonstration of the alliance between Russian Federation and Iran”, David Blair of the Telegraph stressed.
Russia has been launching airstrikes in support of President Bashar Assad’s forces for almost a year, and Syrian and Russian warplanes have stepped up their raids in recent days in Aleppo and the rebel-held Idlib province nearby.
But the West has been pinning its hopes on Moscow.
“If the US Department of State is to be believed, Russian Federation violates the UN Security Council’s resolution and the whole logic of US foreign policy by virtue of its existence”, Satanovsky said. They said the USA must get rebels to break ranks with Nusra, a task that may be more hard after its fighters successfully broke Aleppo’s siege earlier this month.
While some Iranian officials have strongly backed the new addition to already strong Russian-Iranian bonds, some others have come to censure it, seeing it in breach of the Iranian Constitution.
It is virtually unheard of in Iran’s recent history to allow a foreign power to use one of its bases to stage attacks. The previous sorties that this plane has been on have been flown from an airfield in southern Russian Federation, but the problem with that is that it’s 2,000km away from the targets that its striking in Syria.
Konashenkov also pointed out that the US was using a Turkish air base to support its own airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement saying the United Nations resolution 2231 outlaws the use of combat aircraft “inside Iran”, while the Tu-22M3s are used inside Syria, “which is an independent and sovereign state”.
Russian Federation also gave advance notice to the U.S. -led coalition battling Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, complying with the terms of a safety agreement meant to avoid an accidental clash in the skies, said U.S. Army Colonel Christopher Garver, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S-led coalition.
They “informed us they were coming through” airspace that could potentially put them in proximity to USA and coalition aircraft in Iraq or Syria, he said.
On Tuesday, Russian bombers used the Iranian airbase for the first time.
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“While American officials said they were not surprised by the Russia-Iran military collaboration, it appeared to catch them off guard, with no solid information on the Kremlin’s intentions”, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
