“We will not wipe away the tears from our souls and our hearts”.
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The comments are the latest indication that last week’s Islamic State attacks in the French capital and the downing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt are pushing Russia and the US toward joint action in Syria.
“We can unequivocally say it was a terrorist act”, he said.
The two presidents agreed during the call on the importance of increasing worldwide cooperation against extremism, according to Alaa Youssef, the Egyptian presidency spokesperson.
As a result of the deal between the two presidents, 75 percent of Russian attacks in Syria Tuesday were aimed against various rebel groups (around Hama and Aleppo), and only 25 percent against ISIS (at its Raqqa headquarters) and Al-Nusra Front targets.
But it says it changed the target to a Russian plane after Moscow began launching airstrikes in Syria in September.
“The Kremlin postponed the news about explosives for as long as it could, as it was ultimately unfortunate and unpleasant-in fact, it was the first time in Putin’s Russian Federation that somebody blew up a plane outside of the country’s borders”, Vladimir Ryzhkov, a political analyst and professor at the Higher School of Economics, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. The Egyptian government is very concerned over the damage caused by the attack to the credibility of the Egyptian security apparatus and to the country’s economically crucial tourism sector. It also said Putin ordered an additional 37 warplanes into action and directed the Russian navy in the eastern Mediterranean to work “as allies” with its French counterparts.
“We were surprised as we thought that they would activate another article allowing for mutual aid in case of terrorism”, Garcia-Margallo said. And the French now at war with Isis launching retaliatory strikes for the third night since the Paris attacks as the aircraft carrier “Charles de gaulle” is soon to steam toward the Syrian coast, the u.s.-led air war has intensified too. It has always said its main target is Islamic State, but most of its bombs in the past have hit territory held by other groups opposed to its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
If Russian Federation shifts the focus of its strategy in Syria to Islamic State then the USA would be willing to cooperate with Moscow on an intensified military campaign, the U.S. president said on Wednesday.
But Putin later said the issue must be decided by the Syrians as part of that process.
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Putin: “All those who try to lend support to the criminals should know that the consequences of attempts to harbor them will lie wholly upon their shoulders”. The Russians, who have watched the region disintegrate during the last four years of Obama’s “smart power” foreign policy, want their client in place at least for a while to restabilize a significant portion of the region. Similar to the popular meme of the Eiffel Tower inside a circle forming a peace symbol on the French tricolor, the image on Zakharova’s page shows a jet plane in a circle superimposed on the white, blue and red of the Russian flag.
