The State Department on Wednesday welcomed Russian airstrikes against the Islamic State in Raqqa, Syria, but said it’s too early to predict that Russia will become a more reliable ally to the 65-nation coalition fighting the terrorist group.
Secretary of State John Kerry notes that both Russia and France have bombed the Islamic State’s defacto capital city in the last few days, and predicted there would be more global coordination after last week’s attacks in Paris.
“There are Syrian Arabs and Kurds who are starting to put pressure on al-Raqqa, and in the last few days you’ve seen Russia and France increase the bombing level against al-Raqqa,” Kerry said in Washington. “And we will see greater coordination in this effort.”
Kerry didn’t say specifically how more coordination might be seen. State Department spokesman John Kirby said that so far, there is still no official coordination between the U.S. and Russia.
He said the U.S. got a “military notification” that Russia was attacking Raqqa, but said that’s not the same thing as coordination.
“I would not read from that nor would I interpret that to indicate some sort of coordination or cooperation militarily at all,” Kirby said.
Kirby said the Obama administration continues to leave open the possibility that Russia might join the coalition against the Islamic State. But he said a few days of airstrikes against Raqqa isn’t enough.
“We’ve seen some strikes in the last few days in al-Raqqa by Russian aircraft in what we consider to be ISIL-dominated areas,” he said. “That’s welcome. But I think … it’s too soon to tell whether this is indicative of a strategy shift by Russia in terms of their military activities in Syria.”
“Actions speak louder than words, and I think … we’re just not ready to … make a call right now that would say they’ve changed their calculus in terms of what they’re hitting,” Kirby added.
A major step Russia would have to take to join the coalition is stop propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“Every member in the coalition is focused on the ISIL threat,” he said. “What we’ve seen in the recent past by Russia is a focus on the opposition groups and on bolstering the Assad regime.”
“That is completely inconsistent with the goal of trying to eradicate ISIL and Syria, if you’re propping up the Assad regime,” he added.
