“The operation’s military goal is exclusively air support of the Syrian armed forces in their fight against ISIL”, Ivanov said, according to the Tass news agency.
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Russia’s upper house of parliament has voted unanimously to grant President Vladimir Putin the right to deploy the country’s military in Syria.
USA officials have said that the Russian military is ramping up its presence in the coastal areas of Syria where Assad has the most support.
But Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron want the Syrian dictator ousted as civil war has seen atrocities against his own people.
It came after Reuters said the Kremlin declined to confirm a few media reports in the Middle East that the country has already started carrying out air strikes in Syria.
It has couched its stepped-up help as part of an effort to combat the Islamic State jihadist group, which controls large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.
Russia, which has its only naval facility outside the former Soviet Union in the Syrian port of Tartus, has been sending troops and weapons to bolster Assad, a longtime ally.
Syria was a key issue in Presidents Obama and Putin speeches at the ongoing 70th U.N General Assembly but their priorities in the war-torn country share similitude in fighting the Islamic State but diverge on President Assad’s outcome.
The key priority, Cook said, is to maintain the integrity of coalition air operations and the safety of coalition pilots.
In his address Monday at the United Nations, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the world to back Assad, saying the failure to engage the Syrian military in the fight against Islamic State militants was a “huge mistake”.
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Russian Federation and the United States have diverging views on how to tackle the Islamic State group in Syria. IHS Jane’s, a leading defense research group, said last week that satellite images of the base showed 28 jets, including Su-30 multirole fighters, Su-25 ground attack jets, Su-24 bombers and possibly Ka-52 helicopter gunships.
