NEW YORK: Malcolm Turnbull has acknowledged Australian warplanes were part of an ill-directed airstrike that went wrong in Syria on Saturday killing a claimed 60 Syrian government troops instead of the intended Islamic State fighters, while also threatening a delicate ceasefire in that war-torn country.
But though a circumspect Mr Turnbull expressed regret for the deaths during the action in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, he also hinted that there were blatant "contradictions" behind Russia's UN grandstanding on the bungled sorties by US-led coalition countries.
"I can confirm that Australian aircraft were involved in the sortie that's been the subject of the recent news reporting," he said during a Central Park press conference ahead of this week's UN General Assembly and global refugee talks.
"I can say that as soon as the coalition commanders were advised by the Russian command in the region that Syrian forces had been affected, that sortie was discontinued.
"As I said, Australian aircraft were involved as part of the coalition – we regret the loss of life and injury to any Syrian personnel affected, and that is all I can say about the incident at the moment."
Asked if he thought Russia's move to convene an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over the error was legitimate or merely a stunt, Mr Turnbull hesitated before adopting a careful form of words, preferring not to run a commentary on Russia's diplomatic manoeuvres.
However, when it was put to Mr Turnbull that Moscow's claimed umbrage was "a bit rich" given its past aggressive behaviour including bombing of civilians such as a hospital in Aleppo, he said: "Well there are obviously contradictions, those contradictions are obvious, but at the moment, just for our part, you could point out those contradictions, there's obviously a lot of politics involved in this."
With Valdimir Putin's Russia engaged in a proxy tussle with the US-led Western alliance for influence and for the moral high-ground in the long-running civil war in Syria, Saturday's ill-directed airstrikes have become a public relations gift for Mr Putin as he seeks to depict the US attacks on Islamic State as also being directed at the Moscow-backed Assad regime in Damascus.
In another dig at Mr Putin, with whom he had conducted face-to-face talks recently on the sidelines of the G20 which he described as "very, very frank and extensive" Mr Turnbull said the focus now was to avoid making political points in favour of finding a lasting peace in Syria.
The Assad regime enjoys the strong support of Moscow despite being involved in the genocide of hundreds of thousands of its own citizens.
Egged on by Russia, Damascus immediately used the botched US-lead air raids as evidence to support its claim that Washington is actually backing the Islamic State in the Syrian war.
The war of words reveals the fragile state of relations between Russia and the West despite both sides saying a combined approach is needed to defeat the IS threat.
To that end, Mr Turnbull did agree with Russian calls for greater coordination of military actions in Syria to ensure efforts are directed at IS and other extreme jihadist groups rather than Assad forces.
However with Turkey surreptitiously supporting IS rather than Kurdish separatists, which it regards as the greater threat to its sovereignty, the situation remains extremely complex with little transparency and even less hope of genuine straight dealing.
Defence Minister Marise Payne on Monday dismissed any connection between the ill-fated airstrike and the recently relaxed rules of engagement for Australia's combat operations in the region, with attacks now permitted for a wider range of targets including non-combat positions.
She said the believed Islamic State fighting position was a "legitimate target under the laws of armed conflict and it actually has no relationship to the proposed legislative changes".
With Fergus Hunter
