PRESS RELEASE

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Dunford: There’s Still Communication Between U.S., Russian Militaries in Syria

June 19, 2017 (EIRNS)—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, speaking today at a luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., responded to the Russian actions after the U.S. downing of a Syrian war plane Sunday.

Dunford said that, over the past eight months, the deconfliction arrangement with the Russian military has worked very well. "That link is still ongoing, here, this morning. When I left the [Pentagon] this morning," he said. "We’re still communicating over the last few hours." Dunford addressed the Russian Defense Defense Ministry’s announcement that the deconfliction was closed. "I will tell you that we are working diplomatically to re-establish the deconfliction," he said.

"The Russian Federation has indicated that their purpose in Syria is to defeat ISIS. We’ll see if that’s true, here," Dunford continued.

"All of our operations around Raqqa and southern Syria are designed specifically to get after ISIS and we have agreed in the past that as we and the Russian Federation forces—that operations at the coalition which we are conducting in Syria are effectively degrading ISIS’s capability. We’ll work to restore that deconfliction chain in the next few hours."