Fallon: Russian Federation is making Syria situation more unsafe

This is a move which comes amongst a backdrop of tension between Western allies and Moscow, in the wake of Vladimir Putins decision to launch air-strikes in Syria.

Asked about the United Kingdom joining the airstrikes, he said: “Isil is organised and directed in north-east Syria that is being targeted by America, French and Australian air forces”.

But he said no planes would be sent in now, adding: “We need to de-conflict the aircraft space over Syria”.

In a round of interviews at the Tory conference in Manchester, Mr Fallon told BBC1’s Breakfast: “The Russian intervention in Syria has made a pretty hard situation much more unsafe”.

“In Brussels, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ministers will be discussing how we can encourage the Russians to use their influence to stop propping up the Assad regime – which is bombing its own citizens and has helped to fuel the rise of Isil”. They’ve had incursions into Turkish air space.

He said the Government would call a new vote on extending air strikes into Syria “when we are sure we are going to win it”. Bradley armoured fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers, enough to arm one combat brigade, were to be positioned in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland, under announcements made by US Defence Secretary Ash Carter in Talinn.

“It’s a new parliament, there are new MPs on both sides of the House who weren’t there when the first vote was lost about taking military action two years ago, which I think a number of people now rather regret”, he said.

“We will be calling on Russian Federation specifically to stop propping up the Assad regime, to use their influence constructively to stop Assad bombing his own civilians and themselves to avoid the use of unguided munitions in areas that are not being controlled by Isil”, Mr Fallon said.

Fallon said work must now be done to “deconflict” Syrian airspace but it was still possible for western nations to hit Islamic State in its stronghold of Raqqa.

It says it is targeting “all terrorists” in co-ordination with Syria’s government, but North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and allied states have expressed concern that it is concentrating its attacks on rebel groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, a few of them backed by the West, and not jihadist groups like IS.

Mr Fallon told told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it was “illogical” to strike targets in Iraq but not Syria.

He said: “We’ve been building that case amongst MPs and we’ll go on doing that, but obviously the whole thing has been much more complicated by this Russian intervention which we deplore”.