Israel, Russia Conclude First Round of Deconfliction Talks
By Barbara Opall-Rome 1:32 p.m. EDT October 7, 2015
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/leaders/2015/10/07/israel-russia-conclude-first-round-of-deconfliction-talks/73522760/

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel and Russia concluded their first round of talks
Wednesday toward establishing "a joint mechanism for preventing
misunderstandings" between respective forces operating in Syria, with
follow-on talks likely to be downgraded to lower echelon officers to ensure
discretion, sources here said.

Officially, both sides are keeping uncharacteristically mum on the outcome
of the two-day visit here by Nikolai Bogdanovski, deputy chief of staff of
the Russian Armed Forces, and his counterpart and host, Maj. Gen. Yair
Golan.

Despite advance publicity generated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following a Sept. 21 Moscow
meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the bilateral session
concluded here without a statement issued by either side.

In contrast, the Russian Defense Ministry on Wednesday published a notice
that similar talks with Turkey were continuing in order "to elaborate the
mechanism for prevention of incidents on the Syrian-Turkish border."

In an Oct. 7 interview, an IDF officer indicated that agreement on
modalities would take time and that future sessions may be handled by lower
level officers in order to temper expectations and preserve discretion.

"It could be done by lower-echelon officers. We don't want to make too much
of it. We want to prevent conflict, but we don't yet know how to do it," the
officer said.

"In the end, we'll agree on a mechanism and how it will be done. But it
requires defining areas where one operates and making sure the other side
won't interfere or harm you, and vice versa."

The officer added that Israel's primary interest is at its border with
Syria, where as recently as late September, the IDF shelled an area of the
Syrian Golan Heights from which a rocket was launched into Israeli
territory. That incident followed a more forceful Israeli response on Aug.
21, when the Israel Air Force targeted 14 Syrian military posts in the Golan
Heights in response to a barrage of rockets that landed in Israel's upper
Galilee region.

"We have two problems in Syria, both of which have nothing to do with
Russia: One is the terror that is directed against us at our border, and for
that we're operating all the time. The other is the smuggling of high-value
arms to Hizbollah, and needless to say we're following this very closely."

When asked if the dozens of fighter aircraft, gunships and transports
operating in Syrian airspace lend urgency to resolving outstanding issues
toward a joint deconfliction mechanism, the officer replied: "Of course it's
essential to avoid confliction, but until that happens, our Air Force will
know how to take care of itself in problematic situations."

He added, "Everyone is shouting 'Russians, Russians, Russians,' but what
about the Americans and dozens of others who have already been there for a
year? At any given moment, there are hundreds of coalition planes in the
air … The sky is vast."

In the past week, the Russian Defense Ministry published official accounts
of operational activity in and around Syrian territory averaging some 15
sorties per day.

On Oct. 6, it reported 20 combat sorties of Su-34, Su-24M and Su-25 aircraft
that attacked "rear infrastructural facilities, command centers, training
camps and militants' bases" which the ministry claimed belonged to ISIS, or
the Islamic State.

A day earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed it targeted 10 "terror
facilities" and destroyed about 20 T-55 tanks "seized earlier from the
Syrian army" east of Homs. And during the night of Oct. 4, the Ministry
announced airstrikes had destroyed about 30 armored and other ground
vehicles, including tanks, "in the forest area near Idlib."

Dima Adamsky, an associate professor at Israel's Inter-Disciplinary Center's
Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, says Moscow does not
distinguish between the Islamic State and other rebel forces fighting
against its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"Moscow does not differentiate between moderate and extremist rebels and
qualifies any anti-Assad combatants as terrorists – as the targets of
strikes to date make clear," he wrote in a recent Foreign Affairs article
published by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.

Adamsky noted that ongoing Israeli-Russian deconfliction talks would only
partially address the issue of risk posed by Israeli and Russian forces
operating in the same general theater of operations. In his Foreign Affairs
piece, he raised the specter of Syrian and Iranian forces seeking to operate
"as close as possible to Russian forces," which he warned would effectively
turn Russian ground elements into "human shields."

"Israel has routinely been conducting strikes exactly where the Russians are
now expanding their foothold… Israel has signaled its neutrality toward the
conflict, but it is unclear how the Israel Air Force will tolerate potential
jamming, cyber strikes and limits of its space for maneuvering or if Moscow
decides to establish an electromagnetic cordon sanitaire and anti
access-area denial sphere around the pro-Assad coalition's operational
theater," he wrote.

Email: bopallrome@defensenews.com