PRESS RELEASE

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U.S. and Russia Both Assert Close Cooperation in Syria

May 27, 2017 (EIRNS)—On May 24, the day before U.S. President Donald Trump attended the NATO meeting in Brussels, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that U.S. and Russian military leaders were meeting "day and night" at "many different venues" to coordinate and deconflict their separate military operations against the common enemy, ISIS, in Syria.

On the same day, the head of the U.S. Central Command, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian was telling the press at the Pentagon essentially the same thing:

"My team here at the Combined Air Operations Center continues to leverage our de-confliction mechanisms with the Russians to prevent ... a misunderstanding.... We have had to increase the amount of de-confliction work we’re doing with the Russians given the tighter airspace that we’re now working ourselves through.... In most situations, we have in essence a common enemy, ISIS."

He suggested there is increasing cooperation:

"There have been times we’ve had to work through mitigation strategies to ensure we could continue our mission and vice versa. And I think that’s important to highlight in that the Russians are—are understanding of what we’re trying to do,"

Harrigian went on.

"I’m not going to say that it’s always easy and it often takes several phone calls to work our way through it. But I would say that we have found ways to ensure that we have our freedom of maneuver to get after ISIS and kill them when they present themselves."