Greece considers ban on use of airspace by Russian Federation

Russian Federation has been a vital ally of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad throughout the war that has fractured Syria into a patchwork of areas controlled by rival armed groups, including Islamic State, leaving the government in control of much of the west. Lavrov will drop into New York later this month, and will take the issue forward.

“It is too early for us to respond”, he added.

In a telephone conversation on Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry told his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, of his concern.

According to American officials Russia’s military deployment could even be larger than expected.

“There could be ramifications for us, certainly”, Ram Ben-Barak, director-general of Israel’s Intelligence Ministry, told Reuters when asked if Russian intervention in Syria might necessitate new Israeli rules of engagement. The Defense Ministry has said it was fulfilling existing contracts.

“Our proposal is to gather all the efforts together – all the worldwide players, all Syria’s neighbours, all members of the opposition coalition, all of those who are involved”, Ms. Zakharova said.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a Russian defence analyst, said Russia has been trying to avoid Turkish airspace since a 2012 incident in which Ankara forced a Russian civilian jet en route to Damascus to land in Turkey and confiscated its cargo. Russian Federation opposes that both as a goal and a principle. They are in a conundrum: “if Assad goes right away, it would help ISIS, but if he doesn’t go at all, you have no hope of putting the pieces of Syria back together again”, he said.

Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East expert with the Carnegie Endowment’s Moscow office, was skeptical, saying that Putin’s apparent plan to use Syria to improve ties with the West will be unlikely to succeed.

France will launch surveillance flights over Syria with a view to conducting airstrikes on Islamic State (IS) positions, the French president says. On Libya, the United States repeatedly painted its leader, Moammar Gadhafi, as “an evil” who had to be removed.

Moscow has been also providing humanitarian aid to the war-torn country, as well as equipment, training and weaponry. “Instead there is a huge playing field for terrorism”.

“And what can be better than this, having the Europeans tear each other apart over the escalating refugee crisis and forgetting all about the Ukraine”.

Russian Federation has backed Assad to the hilt since the start of the country’s bloody civil war in March 2011.

Reflecting the log-jam over Assad, some of the ideas being tabled for advancing a political process sidestep the question of his future altogether – at least for now, according to a diplomat tracking the conflict.

“The terrorist also confessed to participation in the attacks on the military police and security branches…in addition to acts of vandalism and theft in Sweida”, SANA said.