Moscow said on Monday it was on the brink of forming a military alliance with the United States o carry out joint operations in Syria.

Moscow said on Monday it was on the brink of forming a military alliance with the United States o carry out joint operations in Syria.

"We are now in a very active phase of negotiations with our American colleagues," Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, said in comments broadcast on state television. 

"We are moving step by step closer to a plan - and I'm only talking about Aleppo here - that would really allow us to start fighting together to bring peace so that people can return to their homes in this troubled land," he said.

However, US officials played down Shoigu’s comments, saying there were "nothing to announce at this time."

"We have seen press reports of the Russian Defense Minister’s comments," a state department official told The Telegraph, adding that they have "nothing to announce at this time."

"We speak regularly with Russian officials about ways to strengthen the cessation of hostilities, improve humanitarian access, and bring about the conditions necessary to find a political solution to this conflict," the official added.

The United States is believed to have offered Russia a military alliance against groups both countries consider terrorists last month.

The proposed deal, laid out in a document leaked to the Washington Post, would see the countries working together to attack the Takfiri ISIL group but also al-Qaeda-aligned Nusra Front terrorists, who have been locked in fierce battles with the Syrian government.