Russia and Turkey conducted their first joint air operations Wednesday in Syria, bombing Islamic State positions in and around the town of al-Bab, where U.S. jets also struck militant targets this week.
The operations came as Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted that he had a “working breakfast” in Washington with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump’s designated national security adviser.
The sequence of events reflected Turkey’s ongoing attempts to juggle relations with Moscow and Washington at the dawn of the Trump administration, amid Kremlin efforts to claim a role in Syria’s military and political arenas.
It also brought U.S. and Russian warplanes into their closest potential proximity yet, although a U.S. military spokesman indicated that the American strikes had occurred earlier in the week.
A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter on the record, said the American strikes were not conducted in direct support of Turkish ground troops advancing on al-Bab, but rather as part of attacks against the Islamic State.
The U.S. military is continuing to discuss the possibility of providing close air support to the Turkish troops. The issue is sensitive because the U.S. advised Turkey against a rapid move toward al-Bab, about 30 miles south of the Turkish border, and because of U.S. collaboration with Syrian Kurdish forces.
The Syrian Kurds are crucial to U.S. plans to capture the Islamic State’s de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa, about 140 miles southeast of al-Bab. American aircraft and Special Operations forces are assisting and advising ground troops known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey said the Syrian Kurds, known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, are affiliated with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, know as the PKK, that both Turkey and the U.S. consider terrorists.
U.S. officials are concerned that Turkish advances inside Syrian territory will eventually be directed toward the YPG, and will interfere with the upcoming Raqqa offensive. In deference to Turkey’s objections, it has refrained from sending weapons directly to the Kurds. That option, long favored by the Pentagon, is likely to still be on the table when Trump takes over.
Russia made clear that its air operations are in direct support of Turkey. Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, operations director of the Russian General Staff, said that “nine attack aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces, including four Sukhoi Su-24Ms, four Su-25s and an Su-34 bomber, as well as eight Turkish aircraft” were involved in striking 36 targets.
