Obama also said that any political transition would be a “long, methodical process” that both the US and France are committed to.
Advertisement
The talks seemed certain to be complicated by Turkey’s shoot-down of a Russian warplane Tuesday, with Turkey claiming the plane had violated Turkish airspace and ignored repeated warnings. “The sooner there is a political solution, the less likely there would be the kind of events that took place today”.
This had contributed to Mr Hollande’s hopes he could forge the coalition he believes is needed to destroy the terrorist group, hence his intensive worldwide diplomatic push.
In the French president’s first visit to the USA since the Paris attacks, Hollande expressed gratitude for the broad showing of support by Americans who displayed the French colors and lowered US flags to half-staff.
Whatever their differences may be, Paris views Washington as its most important ally in the fight against Islamic State, de Gilbert said, and France will be asking its other partners to do more as well.
France will also seek to avoid an escalation between Russian Federation and Turkey, according to a French diplomatic official who spoke anonymously because of the sensitiveness of the issue. “We are talking about co-ordination of methods and exchange of intelligence”, a French diplomat said on Monday. “The challenge has been Russia’s focus on propping up Assad [over] fighting ISIL”.
“This is an incident between the Russian and the Turkish governments”, said Steve Warren, a spokesman for the U.S-led military campaign against the IS.
Obama has been criticized by Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates looking to succeed him when he leaves office in January 2017 for his plan to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the US over the next year.
Steve Bucci, a foreign policy and national security expert at The Heritage Foundation, contends that Turkey was right to confront Russian Federation, and that such aggression will deter the Kremlin in the future.
Despite Obama’s show of support, the White House has kept Hollande’s request for more support for a military intervention in Syria at arm’s length.
White House spokesman Earnest welcomed last week’s French airstrikes against militant targets in Syria, while highlighting “significant” USA contributions to the French effort.
Strategy Mr Obama was more forceful in outlining his strategy to defeat Isis, in contrast to a press conference in Turkey four days after the Paris attacks when he bristled at repeated questions from reporters about whether he should change his strategy to defeat Islamic State.
Obama offered to share USA tools for screening refugees with France and other European countries.
He called the IS a “barbaric terrorist group”, saying “its murderous ideology poses a serious threat to all of us” and that the militant group can not be tolerated and must be destroyed.
Still, as the friendly nations presented a united front, it was clear the world’s eye is on Russian Federation.
Putin said that Russia was mourning for Paris victims and those who died in the downing of the Russian passenger plane over Egypt. He praised Hollande’s efforts to build an anti-terror coalition and said that Moscow was open for stronger cooperation.
Calling for a “joint response”, Hollande said France and USA would “scale up our strikes both in Syria and in Iraq to broaden our scope to strengthen our intelligence sharing regarding the targets”.
Advertisement
“Given Russia’s military capabilities and the influence they have on the Assad regime, them co-operating would be enormously helpful in bringing about resolution of the civil war in Syria”, Obama said.
