Failure of US policy in Syria prompted talks with Russia

The failure of US policy in Syria has prompted Washington to hold talks with Russia over the crisis in the Arab country, an American foreign policy analyst says.

James George Jatras, a former US diplomat and adviser to the Senate Republican leadership, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Friday while commenting on the reported renewal of military contacts between the US and Russia.

The Pentagon said on Friday that Washington and Moscow have resumed high-level military contacts to discuss mechanisms to avoid accidental encounters between their forces in Syria.

US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu spoke by telephone on Friday, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.

“The secretary and the minister talked about areas where the United States and Russia’s perspectives overlap and areas of divergence,” he said.

“They agreed to further discuss mechanisms for deconfliction in Syria and the counter-ISIL campaign,” Cook stated, using a military term, deconfliction, which means rival armies will talk to one another in order to avoid accidental encounters between their forces.

The United States and Russia broke off direct military contacts in April 2014 over a dispute over the crisis in Ukraine.