US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has ordered his staff to set up a communication channel with Moscow to coordinate military operations by the US and Russia in Syria.

The order was issued Tuesday a day after US President Barack Obama met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on the sideline of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“Carter directed his staff to open lines of communication with Russia on deconfliction,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters at a press briefing.

The US defense chief (pictured above) seeks to “avoid conflict in the air” between the two countries' forces, he added.

He further noted that the initial and primary purpose of the channel, agreed to on Monday between Obama and Putin, is to ensure no accident takes place between US and Russian pilots. But he did not rule out the communications line as a potential mechanism for outright cooperation with the Russian military to battle Daesh terrorists.

“The safety of coalition pilots [is] critically important to us. We do not want misjudgment and miscalculation. We do not want an accident to take place,” Cook said.

Russia has recently stepped up support for the Syrian government in its fight against the Takfiris.

Cook warned Russia on any moves against foreign-backed militants, adding that “Anything that undermines their effectiveness would be something of concern.”

Meanwhile, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest told reporters that the two leaders agreed to start a conversation on a "practical and tactical level to deconflict American and Russian military activity inside of Syria

A US official said after the Obama-Putin summit that the two leaders decided that conversations between the American and Russian military officials should continue over the crisis in Syria, but added that the two "fundamentally disagreed" on the role of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Moscow’s military support for Assad irks Washington, which calls for the Syrian president’s ouster.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. According to reports, the United States and some of its regional allies have been supporting the militants operating inside Syria since the beginning of the crisis.

The US has also been engaged in airstrikes allegedly against the ISIL militants wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq but apparently to no avail as violence remains at its peak in the neighboring Muslim states.