MOSCOW, October 23. /TASS/. US-led coalition forces do not coordinate with official Damascus their actions in a counter-terrorism operation in Syria against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
Alexander Lukashevich said that mass media remain focused on the air strikes that the US-led coalition has been conducting to prevent from surrendering the cities of Ein al-Arab and Kobane on the Syrian-Turkish border where Kurdish militiamen are fighting with IS militants.
“I would like to draw your attention to the figures which testify to the scale of confrontation between the IS on the one side, and on the other, Syria’s armed forces and coalition forces ,” Lukashevich said. “In recent days Syria’s aviation has been pounding the positions of terrorists with over 159 air strikes a day, while the so-called coalition with its broad opportunities is limited to 10-15 or even 5-7 strikes a day.”
“At the same time, there is no coordination of coalition with Damascus as Washington is determined in its refusal to recognize Bashar Assad’s government as an ally in the fight against terrorism,” he said. “As a result, IS militants are seizing caches of weapons airdropped by the US Air Forces for Kurdish units."
Moscow supports the new Iraqi government’s attitude towards continuing the uncompromising struggle against the threat of terrorism, Lukashevich noted.
The situation in Iraq “arouses growing concern in Moscow." “Terrorist attacks shake the country. Dozens of peaceful civilians fall victims of them,” Lukashevich said.
“Islamist militants are holding several major Iraqi cities and regions. The situation proves that air strikes by the US-led anti-IS coalition are not yielding sensible results,” he added.