And it’s understandable that people worry something similar could happen here. “But of course incidents like the destruction of our aircraft and the deaths of our servicemen… are absolutely unacceptable”, Putin said at a news conference, standing alongside Hollande.
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Immigration has taken center stage as an important issue ahead of the 2016 presidential race but reached fever pitch following the deadly Paris attacks earlier this month. Middle East analyst Aaron David Miller of the Woodrow Wilson Center says bridging those different viewpoints will not be easy, but only Russian Federation has the necessary leverage if Assad is to be pushed out.
The French leader has been seeking global support for his newly declared war on ISIS after the Paris attacks on Nov 13 that killed 130 people.
But Franco-American efforts to build what Hollande has termed a “grand and unique coalition” against ISIS suffered a setback Tuesday when Turkey downed a Russian Su-24 fighter jet near the Turkish-Syrian border – the first time a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member has shot down a Russian plane since 1952.
President Barack Obama urged Americans to show generosity to Syrian refugees in his Thanksgiving message on Thursday, reminding them that the Pilgrims who came to America in 1620 were themselves fleeing persecution.
Hollande was in Moscow for the last leg of a diplomatic mission to rally support for a wider coalition against IS, with the two leaders finding common ground as recent victims of attacks that killed hundreds of people. “We are ready to cooperate with the U.S.-led coalition”.
When Laura Haim of France’s Canal+ TV network asked if there was a deadline for ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, both men had the same policy: no timetable. In contrast, the head of the world’s only superpower appears half-hearted and stubbornly unwilling to put forward or commit to a clear-cut strategy for defeating the Islamic State. He also wants the European Union to require airlines to share passenger information, a move created to stop terrorists from entering countries undetected.
“Crowds gather in the Place de la Republique, including a mother who brought her children – she said, “to let them see that we should not be afraid”, Obama said.
“If Russia fully commits to a political solution in Syria, we want to gather all countries, all those willing to find and implement a political solution”, Hollande said.
During Merkel’s visit in Paris on Wednesday, Hollande had said it would “be a very good signal in the fight against terrorism” if Germany could do more against IS in Syria and Iraq.
The French do not possess anything like the military capability of the United States, but since the Paris attacks they have been hitting ISIS as hard as they can in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.
President Obama is speaking about US security in the wake of the attacks in Paris.
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“We would like the countries concerned to respond calmly based on the facts”, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.
