US, Russia militaries launch talks

The United States and Russia renewed high-level contacts between their militaries on Friday to discuss how to deal with the war in Syria.

US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke by telephone, spokesmen from their ministries said.

Washington and its Nato allies broke off ties with the Russian military in April last year in protest at Moscow's intervention in Ukraine.

But now the rivals find themselves enmeshed in Syria, where they face an opportunity to work together but also the danger of an accidental clash.

For a year, the United States and a coalition of Western and Arab allies have been carrying out air strikes against Islamic State jihadists.

The United States has also, with limited success, been training Syrians who are fighting the extremist IS group but who are also in revolt against the Damascus regime.

Russia, meanwhile, is providing support to Bashar al-Assad's government and building up its own military presence at an airbase and a naval depot in western Syria.

"The secretary and the minister talked about areas where the United States and Russia's perspectives overlap and areas of divergence," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.

Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told Russian agencies that the call had lasted an hour and that contacts would continue.

In Washington, Cook said: "They agreed to further discuss mechanisms for deconfliction in Syria and the counter-ISIL campaign."

In military terms, "deconfliction" means rival armies will talk to one another to avoid accidental encounters between their forces.

The White House said Thursday it was open to limited talks with Moscow following what Washington believes is the deployment of Russian troops and heavy weapons to war-torn Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has provided vital support to Assad throughout a popular uprising against his regime and as the conflict has metastasized into a brutal civil war that has killed 240,000 people and displaced four million.

But Moscow has also sought to portray Assad's army as a bulwark against Islamist rebels, including ISIS, which has seized a vast swathe of eastern Syria and northern Iraq and declared a so-called "caliphate."

Moscow yesterday said it would consider any request from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to send troops.

"If there is any request then it would naturally be discussed and evaluated through bilateral contacts and dialogue," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

"But it is difficult to talk about this hypothetically."

Washington and its European, Turkish and Arab allies view Assad as a pariah who they blame for plunging Syria into chaos and allowing the Islamic State group to thrive.