US and Russian fighter pilots communicated directly in the skies over Syria on Tuesday in a successful test of new procedures for avoiding incidents as they pursue separate air campaigns, the department said.
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The burgeoning coordination between the two comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was set to meet the UN’s Syria envoy, Mr Staffan de Mistura, in Moscow yesterday.
She also warned that regime change in Syria, now sought by a host of Western nations, could become a “regional catastrophe”, making worse the effects of a war that has forced millions of people to flee the country since 2011.
The operation is conducted at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
But her remarks appeared to suggest a difference of approach compared with Iran, which has sent forces to fight alongside Mr Assad’s military and ordered in fighters from the Lebanese Hizbullah group, which it controls. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, acknowledged that Russian Federation “may not care if Assad stays in power, as we do”. The Tasnim news agency quoted him on Monday as saying: “We don’t know any better person to replace him”.
Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, said Moscow has failed to exact any humanitarian concessions from Assad as a price for Russian support. “The meeting … will possibly be with the participation of government representatives”, Bogdanov said.
Moscow has previously lamented that there is no agreement among the global members of a U.S.-led coalition in Syria on who should be declared legitimate opposition to Mr. Assad’s government – or should, or should not be targeted like the Islamic State.
At the same time at the Vienna talks the White House said U.S. President Barack Obama has authorized the first sustained deployment of special forces to Syria, which marks a U-turn in the U.S.’ long-time principle of not putting US boots on the ground.
“Eighty-five to 90 percent of Russian strikes have hit the moderate Syrian opposition and they have killed civilians in the process”, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Anne Patterson said during testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Khaled Khoja, president of the Syrian National Coalition, urged Britain and other countries not to take part in open-ended talks after last Friday’s meeting in Vienna, the largest gathering yet devoted to ending the four-and-half-year war, which has claimed over 250,000 lives and made 11 million people homeless.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said warplanes belonging to either Russian Federation or the Syrian regime had bombed ISIS’ de facto capital Raqa on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people.
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The military forces of both the nations agreed on a safety protocol last month despite United States’ strong disapproval of Russia’s airstrikes over Syria for over a month. Areas around Aleppo have seen weeks of heavy fighting.
