Sergei Lavrov calls for talks as Russia reportedly sends an anti-aircraft battery to a country where the US is staging airstrikes.
Source: Sky News
Russia has urged the US to engage in military co-operation amid reports it is sending an advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Syria.
Two Western officials and a Russian source told Reuters that Moscow is sending Pantsir-S missiles to the war-torn country where the US has been engaging in airstrikes on Islamic State.
Russia is also staging naval exercises off Syria’s coast.
The anti-aircraft system would be operated by Russian troops, rather than Syrians, the Western officials said.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said his country was sending equipment to help Syrian President Bashar al Assad fight Islamic State.
Russia has urged the US to engage in military co-operation amid reports it is sending an advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Syria.
Two Western officials and a Russian source told Reuters that Moscow is sending Pantsir-S missiles to the war-torn country where the US has been engaging in airstrikes on Islamic State.
Russia is also staging naval exercises off Syria’s coast.
The anti-aircraft system would be operated by Russian troops, rather than Syrians, the Western officials said.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said his country was sending equipment to help Syrian President Bashar al Assad fight Islamic State.
Russian servicemen were in Syria, he said, primarily to help service that equipment and teach Syrian soldiers how to use it.
Mr Lavrov accused Washington of cutting off direct military-to-military communication between Russia and NATO after the crisis in Ukraine last year.
He said contact of that type was “important for the avoidance of undesired, unintended incidents”.
“We are always in favour of military people talking to each other in a professional way. They understand each other very well,” he said.
“If, as (US Secretary of State) John Kerry has said many times, the United States wants those channels frozen, then be our guest.”
Officials in the US said they do not know what Moscow intends to achieve by carrying out the naval exercises.
Assad’s government has suffered a number of battlefield setbacks this year at the hands of an array of insurgent groups including Islamic State.
President Barack Obama said US strategy in countering Islamic State would not change.
“But we are going to be engaging Russia to let them know that you can’t continue to double-down on a strategy that is doomed to failure,” he added.
Russia, an ally of Syria, already has a Mediterranean naval base at Tartus on the Syrian coast which it will aim to defend.
US officials said they believe about 200 Russian naval infantry forces are now stationed in Latakia on the coast in government-held Syria.
One official estimated that the majority of the forces were involved in preparing the airfield for future use.
Lebanese sources told Reuters that an unknown number of Russian troops are supporting Assad’s forces with combat operations.
The US is also operating on the ground in the region, training and assisting fighters involved in the battle against Islamic State.
Britain has been contemplating airstrikes on IS in Syria to back up the US operation.
Analysts say the sending of anti-aircraft missiles, which the two Western officials said had been dispatched but had not yet arrived, appeared to undermine Russia’s argument that it only aims to help Damascus fight Islamic State as no rebel militants currently possess any aircraft.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said “adding war to war” would not help resolve the conflict.
The war in Syria has left 250,000 people dead, divided the nation and turned half of Syria’s 23 million people into refugees.
Some of those who have fled the country have travelled to European countries, hugely adding to the migration crisis.
Nwo Report 