Talks between Russian and U.S. defense officials were underway as of Thursday morning to deconflict air space over Syria the day after Russia began conducting strikes there, the Pentagon said.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters on Wednesday that the next step in U.S.-Russia relations was sending a Defense Department team to talk with the Russians about how to ensure coalition pilots are not involved in an inadvertent air-to-air incident as both countries are flying sorties over the country. Capt. Jeff Davis, Pentagon spokesman, said those talks had begun.
Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, said “there is a lot of square miles in Syria,” so pilots accidentally encountering each other in the air is possible, but not likely.
“Coalition pilots, there’s no set of pilots on earth as good as them and they have terrific situational awareness. So while there is always danger of inadvertent contact … we are continuing with our operations,” he said.
Russians began conducting airstrikes in Syria on Wednesday morning, though their strikes were focused over eastern Syria, which is controlled by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Warren said the Russians flew about “half a dozen” strikes on Wednesday. He did not know if there had been any Russian strikes so far on Thursday.
The Russians also asked the U.S. on Wednesday to clear its planes out of Syrian airspace. The U.S. did not comply and flew strikes yesterday over the western part of Syria where the Islamic State has its strongholds.
Warren said the Russians did not strike the Islamic State, despite publicly stating that they would be striking the terrorist group. He could not say what groups they did hit. The Wall Street Journal reported that the targets were CIA-backed rebels.
“The Russians have said they were going to do one thing, and here they are doing something different from that, which we’ve of course seen before,” Warren said.
Warren said he has seen no indication that the Russians could begin conducting strikes in Iraq.
