Russia’s deployment of fighter jets to a base in Syria raises “serious questions,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday at a meeting in London with Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
Russia moved a small number of fighter jets to a Syrian base Friday, according to U.S. officials, just hours after a discussion between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
“Clearly, the presence of aircraft with air-to-air combat capacity … and surface-to-air missiles raise serious questions,” Kerry said, adding that the U.S. would “obviously” welcome Russian help in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State.
An American official speaking anonymously to the AP said the Russians “have deployed at least one” system with air-to-air or surface-to-air missile capability, reports the AP.
Most recently, Russia sent weapons, portable housing units, military advisors, artillery, and about a half dozen tanks plus air support near the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. A Pentagon spokesman described the build-up Monday as an apparent Russian “forward operating base.” Russia has spent years propping up the brutal Syrian dictator accused of using chemical weapons against his own people.
Russia’s deployment outside the former Soviet Union represents “its first major expeditionary force deployment outside the former Soviet Union since the war in Afghanistan,” an official told the AP.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly defended Russia’s military support inside Syria, saying Tuesday that Russian weapons were needed to defeat the Islamic State’s “terrorist aggression.”
Kerry said the military-to-military talks that will be held with Russia over the next few days will have to resolve Russia’s decision to bring more equipment into the region to shore up Syrian President Bashar al Assad also draws in foreign fighters like the Islamic State.
“There’s a lack of logic in” what Russia is doing, said Kerry. “If all they’re doing – if they’re bringing in more equipment, shoring up Assad at the same time as they say they’re going after ISIL. That has to be resolved in our conversations over the course of the next days.”
Kerry also said the two nations have to be sure that their separate missions against the Islamic State do not cause an incident between the Russian and American militaries. The U.S.-led coalition is operating in the same airspace over Syria that Russia has sent warplanes into.
Kerry did not overtly object to Russian military buildup in the region, and talks between the two nation’s militaries underline the Obama administration’s seeming acceptance of Russian intervention in Syria.
After years of calls for Assad’s removal, Kerry acknowledged this softening by saying that “we’re not being doctrinaire about the specific date or time” that Assad must be removed.
“We’re open,” he noted, adding that Assad does not need to leave “on day one, or month one, or whatever.”
