The Pentagon on Monday said it is still able to communicate with Moscow in order to prevent conflicts in Syria, though it did not confirm how the two countries were communicating.

Reports on Friday indicated Russia was suspending the special "deconfliction line" the countries had set up to keep military actions from colliding. Russia reportedly was suspending the line in response to U.S. airstrikes against Syria on Thursday, which it described as an “act of aggression.”

The line was set up in October 2015 to avoid midair incidents between Russian and U.S. pilots in the skies over Syria, but Russia said it would cut communication after President Trump ordered the strike in Syria in response to a chemical attack April 4 that left at least 70 civilians dead. Officials in the U.S. said the attack was carried out by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom Russia supports in the country's years-long civil war.

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U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. John Thomas said the line was used Thursday when the U.S. notified Russia it would attack a Syrian airfield and again on Friday, but the Pentagon will not say whether that line remains open.

“After that point, a lot of things have been said back and forth in the open press, and we do not want to contribute to [it],” Thomas told reporters at the Pentagon. “We’re going to let it settle and we’re going to make sure that we maintain the best possible communication in the airspace to keep it safe.”

Thomas added that even with a closed line “there are still ways for pilots to hail each other. There are other ways to deconflict [and] we’re going to use all of those means no matter what the situation is with that particular phone line.”