TEL-AVIV, September 21. /TASS/. The mechanism of deconflcition between Russia and Israel over Syria has proved its effectiveness and it keeps working, a senior Russian Israeli military official told a news briefing for foreign mass media.
"The deconfliction mechanism keeps working as before. It turned out highly effective over the past three years. Last time it was used about one hour ago, but it was not connected with Israel’s attack," he said. "On the condition of mutual consent certain adjustments to this mechanism can be made, but this is not for certain yet. Our task is to go ahead with coordination while maintaining Israel’s strategic security interests."
The Israeli official claimed that his country’s military had notified the Russian counterparts of a forthcoming attack against targets in Syria much more than one minute in advance.
"Certainly we gave far more time than one minute before the attack," he said. "It was certainly greater than one minute but I cannot say accurately how long that period of time was."
The military official said that an Israeli military delegation under Air Force Commander Amikam Norkin during a visit to Moscow on Thursday presented to Russian counterparts its own information testifying that Russia’s Ilyushin-20 plane was shot down on September 17 due to erratic Syrian defense fire.
"The delegation returned home Friday morning. There were several meetings. Our presentation consisting of several parts was most important," he said. "Once again we expressed regret and condolences over the loss of fifteen Russian military servicemen, showed different documents confirming Iran’s military presence in Syria, spoke about the attack in Latakia and the results of our investigation of the incident, which resulted in the downing of a Russian plane. We demonstrated that erratic fire by the Syrian air defense, which acted irresponsibly and not professionally, resulted in the loss of the Russian plane at the moment when our planes had already left the area."
Tragedy over Mediterranean
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said that at 23:00 Moscow time on September 17 contact was lost with Russia’s Ilyushin-20 when the plane returning to the air base Khmeimim was 35 kilometers away from Syria’s coastline. The plane disappeared from the radar screens while four Israeli F-16 fighter planes were attacking targets in Syria’s Latakia province. The Russian Defense Ministry later said the plane had been shot down by Syria’s air defense. The Israeli air pilots used the Ilyushin-20 as a cover, thus exposing it to missiles launched with the S-200 system, the Defense Ministry said.
The press-service of the Israel Defense Forces issued a communique to express regret over the death of the Ilyushin-20 crew. Israeli Air Force commander Norkin on Thursday held a series meetings with Russian Aerospace Force officials over the loss of Russia’s Ilyushin-20 plane in the Mediterranean. The Israeli delegation presented to the commander of Russia’s Aerospace Force and other senior military officials a report on the situation and the findings of its own investigation.