WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States and Russia sparred Friday over whether they will maintain a hotline aimed at preventing midair collisions of their warplanes in Syria, with senior U.S. military officials contradicting Moscow’s claims that it has suspended the “deconfliction” talks in protest of America’s cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base.
The officials also said they’re looking into whether Russia participated in the chemical weapons attack in Syria earlier this week that prompted President Donald Trump’s order for a retaliation. They said Russia has failed to control the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons or to account for chemical agents that were supposed to have been eliminated under a 2013 agreement, and may have been complicit in Tuesday’s horrifying strike that involved the use of a sarin-like nerve gas.
In Moscow, the Russian government on Friday announced its own swift response to the American intervention against its Arab ally. It said it would cut the hotline that was established after Russia joined Syria’s civil war in 2015 to help Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government against opposition groups. The hotline’s primary intent is to ensure Russian planes conducting combat missions in Syria’s skies don’t stumble into an accident or confrontation with aircraft flown by the U.S.-led coalition fighting an Islamic State insurgency in the north of the country.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reportedly said that Moscow would consider reactivating the memorandum with the United States on preventing air incidents in Syria.
But the senior U.S. military officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity, said U.S.-Russian discussions have continued since Thursday night’s attack on the Syrian military base. They said American officials asked the Russians on Friday if the military talks would continue. The Russians said they would.