Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, said that US will be working “diplomatically and militarily in the coming hours to re-establish deconfliction” with Russia in Syria, speaking in Washington DC, Monday. His comments come after the US-led coalition’s reported downing of a Syrian government warplane in southern Syria.
Dunford stated that he is “confident that we are still communicating between our operations centre and the Russian Federation operation centre.”
The Joint Chiefs chairman said that neither side should “address this thing with hyperbole. An incident occurred. We have to work through the incident. We have a channel to be able to do that.”
The Syrian military said in a statement that US-led coalition had downed its jet near Raqqa on Sunday, while the plane was carrying out operations against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS; formerly ISIS/ISIL).
