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U.S. asks Greece to deny Russian flights to Syria

07 September 2015 18:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The United States has asked Greece to deny Russia the use of its airspace for supply flights to Syria, a Greek official said on Monday, after Washington told Moscow it was deeply concerned by reports of a Russian military build up in Syria, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The Greek foreign ministry said the request was being examined. Russian newswire RIA Novosti earlier said Greece had refused the U.S. request, quoting a diplomatic source as saying that Russia was seeking permission to run the flights up to Sept. 24.

Russia, which has a naval base in the Syrian port of Tartous, has sent regular flights to Latakia, which it has also used to bring home Russian nationals who want to leave.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Saturday that if reports of the build-up were accurate, that could further escalate the war and risk confrontation with the U.S.-led alliance that is bombing Islamic State in Syria.

Lavrov told Kerry it was premature to talk about Russia's participation in military operations in Syria, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman told RIA Novosti on Monday.

Lavrov confirmed Russia had always provided supplies of military equipment to Syria, saying Moscow "has never concealed that it delivers military equipment to official Syrian authorities with the aim of combating terrorism".

Russia has been a vital ally of 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.

Foreign states are already deeply involved in the war that has killed a quarter of a million people. While Russia and Iran have backed Assad, rebel groups seeking to oust him have received support from governments including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The Syrian army and allied militia have lost significant amounts of territory to insurgents this year. Assad said in July the Syrian army faced a manpower problem.

Russia has been trying to build a wide coalition including Damascus to fight Islamic State, which was reported on Monday to have captured an oil field from government forces near the city of Palmyra.

But the idea has been rejected by enemies including the United States and Saudi Arabia, who see Assad as part of the problem.

A senior U.S. official told Reuters on Saturday that U.S. authorities have detected "worrisome preparatory steps," including transport of prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people to a Syrian airfield, that could signal that Russia is preparing to deploy heavy military assets there.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Moscow's exact intentions remained unclear but that Kerry called Lavrov to leave no doubt about the U.S. position.

A Syrian military official has said Syrian-Russian military relations have witnessed a "big shift" in recent weeks.