Russia ready to cooperate with US-led coalition in fight for Syria’s Raqqa: Interfax

MOSCOW Russia is ready to coordinate its actions with the U.S.-led coalition in Syria to push the Islamic State group out of Raqqa, Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.

“We are ready to coordinate our actions with the Americans, because Raqqa is in the eastern part of Syria, and the American coalition is mainly … acting there,” Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying in an interview with the Ren-TV television channel.

“Perhaps, this is no secret, if I say that at some stage the

Americans suggested performing a ‘division of labor’: the Russian Air Forces should concentrate on the liberation of Palmyra, and the American coalition with Russian support will focus on the liberation of Raqqa,” the minister added.

(Reporting by Ekaterina Golubkova, writing by Maria Tsvetkova, editing by Christian Lowe)