ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Russia has contacts with representatives from the Free Syrian Army, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as quoted by Russian state news outlet TASS on Monday.
The Russian official’s statement came as an answer to a question as to whether envoys of the FSA visited Russia last week. Russia claimed this week it was willing to aid the FSA with airstrikes, but the US was not cooperating, and refused to inform Russia of the positions of the FSA. Russia since late September has been conducting airstrikes in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom the FSA is opposed to in the country’s ongoing civil war.
"They are here all the time. There are various people who come and go,” Bogdanov told TASS of FSA contacts in Russia. “But everybody says that they are representatives of the Free Syrian Army.”
Assad made a surprise visit to Moscow on October 20, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In an interview aired on Russian state TV on Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia’s air force is ready to help the FSA as well.
"We are ready to back the patriotic opposition, including the so-called Free Syrian Army, with our air support. However, Washington is refusing to inform us of the location of the terrorists and where the opposition is based," Lavrov told Russian state TV.
But the FSA has condemned the Russian airstrikes in Syria, claiming that they do not target ISIS, and says instead the FSA itself has been the main target of the attacks.
Lavrov's offer came after one day of quadrilateral talks in Vienna between the US, Russian, Turkish and Saudi foreign ministers on seeking a political settlement for the Syria Civil War.
"External players cannot decide anything for the Syrians. We must force them to come up with a plan for their country where the interests of every religious, ethnic and political group will be well protected," Lavrov was quoted as saying at the meeting.
The FSA is an armed Syrian opposition faction—considered "moderate opposition" by Western countries—fighting the regular Syrian army remaining loyal to Assad since the beginning of the civil war in 2011.
