Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that Russian long-range bombers based in the Islamic Republic of Iran, conducted air raids inside Syria. According to the ministry, the strikes were performed against the Islamic State and the Al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and Deir ez-Zor. In response to the announcement, US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that Russia’s use of an Iranian air base to carry out military strikes in Syria is “unfortunate but not surprising,” adding that Washington was still assessing the extent of Russian-Iranian cooperation. It’s unfortunate but not surprising, or unexpected. And I think it speaks to the continuation of a pattern that we’ve seen of Russia continuing to carry out air strikes, now it appears with Iran’s direct assistance, that at least purport to target ISIL and Da’esh targets, as well as Nusra targets, but in fact, and we’ve seen this continually, predominantly target moderate Syrian opposition forces,” said the spokesman.
Toner noted that Russia’s use of the Iranian bases would not necessarily prevent the United States from reaching an agreement with Moscow to cooperate in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. Nevertheless, he emphasized, that Washington and Moscow have yet to reach an aligned understanding. “My short answer to you is no. It is- it does not preclude the fact that we will reach some kind of cooperative arrangement with Russia. We continue to pursue that. You know, we’re going to continue to speak to Russia, in working groups, or via working groups I guess, about ways that we can put in place a credible nationwide cease fire, have full access to humanitarian assistance, and then again to get negotiations restarted in Geneva. That continues to be our focus. We’re not there yet,” added Toner.