Washington, Pentagon. US Defense Department officials announce the American forces in Syria will resume “hotline” contact with Russian forces to prevent any chance of misunderstandings in air operations within Syrian airspace.
Izvestia has reported that Russia has resumed its memorandum on preventing incidents in the sky over Syria, at the request of US Department of Defense authorities. The newspaper referred to three sources in the Russian Foreign Ministry, saying that the memorandum went out on April 13 and was effective immediately.
The American State Department Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Izvestia while he was in Moscow that they had “appealed to the Russian leadership to extend the agreement.” Tillerson visited Moscow on the 11th and 12th of April.
Following the meetings with the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Tillerson reported on the creation of a military working group to stabilize relations between Moscow and Washington with respect to the Syrian crisis.
Russia had suspended the memorandum back on April the 7th, in response to a US Tomahawk missile strike at a military base in Syria. The position by Moscow was that by striking Syria, the United States had negated the need for such an agreement by their hostile, unprovoked actions.