(VOVworld)- NATO has ruled out sending ground troops to fight against Islamic State militants in Syria, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg told a Swiss newspaper, stressing the need to bolster local forces in the conflict. Mr. Jens Stoltenberg said it’s important to ease tension between Russia and Turkey following Turkey’s shooting of a Russian warplane.

Royal Air Force fighter jets fly over the British airbase at Akrotiri, near Cyprus' second city of Limassol on December 3, 2015 (AFP Photo/Iakovos Hatzistavrou)

In another development, Syria's foreign ministry on Monday condemned US-led coalition air strikes on an army camp that killed several regime soldiers as "flagrant aggression," state media reported.  It said four Syrian soldiers had been killed and 13 wounded in strikes by four coalition planes on an army camp in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. The coalition has been carrying out strikes against IS since September 2014, and does not coordinate with the government in Damascus. The Syrian government has regularly criticised the US-led strikes as ineffective and illegal because they are not coordinated with regime forces, and the ministry that the Deir Ezzor incident was further evidence of the coalition's failings.