Moscow, Russia. After days of attacks on forces working with Russia in Syria, Russia said on Saturday it has told the United States it was unacceptable for Washington to strike pro-government forces in Syria after the US military carried out an air strike on pro-Assad militia last month killing nearly 60 of Assad’s troops.
Sergei Lavrov relayed the message to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a phone call on Saturday initiated by the US side, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The two men had also exchanged assessments of the situation in Syria, it added and confirmed their desire to step up co-operation to try to end the conflict there.
Russian officials told News Front last month that the US military carried out the air strike against militia supported by the government of President Bashar Al Assad which it said posed a threat to US forces and US-backed Syrian fighters in the country’s south.
Military officials in Russia said at the time that the US action would hamper efforts to find a political solution to the conflict and had violated the sovereignty of Syria, one of Russia’s closest Middle East allies. Minister Lavrov expressed his disagreement with the US strikes on pro-government forces and called on him to take concrete measures to prevent similar incidents in future. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry in Moscow, said Lavrov and Tillerson had also discussed the need to try to mend the rift between Qatar and other Arab nations through negotiations and had talked about the state of US-Russia relations and planned future meetings between officials of the two countries.