U.S., Russia to renew Syrian-sky talks

Aircraft conflicts to be discussed; Moscow pushes broader cooperation as topic

A Russian Su-34 warplane lands at an air base Tuesday in Syria after a bombing mission. U.S. military officials said Tuesday that Russia has agreed to more talks on ensuring the two countries’ aircraft don’t interfere with each other over Syria, but a Russian official called for broader talks on international cooperation in the fight against the Islamic State.
A Russian Su-34 warplane lands at an air base Tuesday in Syria after a bombing mission. U.S. military officials said Tuesday that Russia has agreed to more talks on ensuring the two countries’ aircraft don’t interfere with each other over Syria, but a Russian official called for broader talks on international cooperation in the fight against the Islamic State.

NAVAL AIR STATION SIGONELLA, Italy -- Russia has agreed to continue talks to ensure that its and the United States' aircraft don't interfere with each other over Syria, senior U.S. military officials said Tuesday.

photo

AP

In this photo taken from Russian Defense Ministry official website Tuesday, a Russian military support crew inspects missiles attached to a jet at an air base in Syria.

But a Russian defense official said the talks need to be much broader.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said a response to the Pentagon's request for talks came through the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and reached U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter while he was flying from Moron Air Base in Spain to Sigonella, Italy.

"We look forward to the formal response from the Russians and learning the details," Cooke said. "We stand ready to meet again to continue our earlier discussion as soon as possible."

Earlier Tuesday, Carter had called on Russian leaders to contact the Pentagon immediately to discuss Moscow's military activities in Syria, reflecting urgent concerns about Russian aircraft violating Turkish airspace. NATO on Monday denounced Russia for "irresponsible behavior" for allowing its warplanes to cross into Turkey.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said the Russians want broad discussions on international cooperation between Russia and the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State.

"Regrettably, the Americans would like to limit our cooperation to technical issues relating to interaction between our pilots while on relevant missions," Antonov said Tuesday.

"The Americans have handed us a document, on which we are working," he said.

U.S. and Russian officials met once by videoconference late last week, before the incursion into the airspace of Turkey, which borders Syria. Carter said the U.S. has been waiting for a second meeting on how to avoid any accidents or miscalculations in the increasingly crowded skies over Syria.

Turkey, a NATO member, mentioned only one Russian intrusion over the weekend, but the military alliance said a second Russian jet also violated Turkish airspace Sunday. The airspace violations triggered immediate outrage from the alliance. Russia insisted the first incursion was a mistake and says it had nothing to do with the second one.

Carter and other NATO defense ministers are expected to discuss how to deal with the problem when they meet in Brussels later this week.

The U.S.-led coalition has been routinely conducting airstrikes on Islamic State militants in Syria.

The tensions came as U.S. officials reported intensified Russian activity in apparent preparation for some form of ground offensive against rebel-held areas of northern Syria and as they noted indications from a senior Russian official that Russia is planning to send ground forces to join the combat in Syria.

On Monday in Moscow, Adm. Vladimir Komoyedov, the head of the Russian parliament's defense committee, said it was "likely" that Russian volunteers who have served in Ukraine will be dispatched to Syria to join the fight, according to the Russian Interfax news agency.

Komoyedov's statement about "volunteer" ground troops echoes Russia's use of shadowy ground forces in areas such as Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Days earlier, the head of the Russian republic of Chechnya offered to dispatch pro-Russian Chechen forces to Syria to participate in operations in that country.

However on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin's military intervention overshadowed a recent diplomatic flurry to seek a solution to the four-year civil war. While NATO is pressuring the government in Moscow to coordinate efforts to attack Islamic State, Russian politicians rejected any notion of a protracted involvement in Syria.

Russia is "neither planning to, nor will participate in any ground operations," Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of Russia's upper house of the parliament, said at talks in Amman on Tuesday with her Jordanian counterpart, Abdur-Rauf Rawabdeh, Interfax reported. "We will not be dragged into the resolution of the international Syrian crisis for long."

Russia says the airstrikes it began last week are directed against the Islamic State group as well as al-Qaida's Syrian affiliates. But the U.S. and France say at least some of the strikes appear to have hit Western-backed rebel factions fighting government troops, with the real goal of protecting Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Rebel factions -- moderates, Islamists and radicals alike -- have had to evacuate some bases and move ammunition stores, according to opposition activists and rebel commanders. The rebels are calling for their regional backers, such as the Gulf countries and Turkey, to boost their support, including more sophisticated weapons like anti-aircraft missiles.

Maj. Jamil al-Saleh, the leader of the U.S. -backed rebel group Tajammu Alezzah, said his forces have had to redeploy to safer areas after 22 of his fighters were wounded in the airstrikes, but they have not withdrawn from the front lines at Latamneh, a town north of Hama. The airstrikes were clearly intended to tip the area to the government's favor, he added.

Russian officials say they have more than 50 warplanes and helicopters taking part in the open-ended air operations. They are flying 20 to 25 missions a day in Syria, compared to an average of about eight per day by the U.S.-led coalition.

In addition to its air campaign, Russia has brought ground combat weaponry into western Syria, according to U.S. officials. This includes a small number of artillery pieces and a multiple-launch rocket system called the Smerch moved in recent days to the vicinity of Hama, southeast of the coastal air base where Russia has staged most of its aircraft, a U.S. defense official said.

U.S. officials have been critical of Russia's entrance into the Syrian conflict and Carter said the latest issues will cause the U.S. to further strengthen its posture against Moscow.

During the videoconference with the Russians on Thursday, Elissa Slotkin, who represented the U.S. side, raised concerns about the Russian airstrikes targeting areas where there are few if any Islamic State militants operating. Slotkin is the acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.

The meeting was aimed at making sure there are no conflicts, collisions or other problems as the U.S.-led coalition and the Russians fly over Syria. A key concern is the prospect of the U.S. and Russia getting drawn into a shooting war in the event that Russian warplanes hit moderate Syrian rebels who have been trained and equipped by the U.S. and received promises of U.S. air support if they are attacked.

Information for this article was contributed by Lolita C. Baldor, Vladimir Isachenkov, Robert Burns and Sarah el Deeb of The Associated Press; by Liz Sly, Daniela Deane, Brian Murphy, Craig Whitlock, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post; by Donna Abu-Nasr, Ilya Arkhipov and James G. Neuger of Bloomberg News

A Section on 10/07/2015

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