French President Francois Hollande held talks with his United States counterpart Barack Obama and its most likely they discussed the issue of forming a broad anti-terrorist coalition.
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Hollande’s alignment with Obama was notable, given that he was expected to urge the US president to put aside some of his differences with Russian Federation to build a new coalition to fight the extremists.
The president said for over a year, the U.S., France, and roughly 65 other nations have been working to defeat ISIS, which Mr. Obama said has been pushed back in Iraq and Syria as a result of more than 8,000 coalition airstrikes.
“This barbaric terrorist group, ISIL or Daesh, and its murderous ideology pose a serious threat to all of us”. He said the militant group can not be tolerated and must be destroyed.
Obama said, “We are here today to declare that the United States and France stand united in total solidarity to deliver justice to these terrorists and those who sent them and to defend our nations”.
Hollande’s visit to the USA underscored the urgency on counterterrorism after the November 13 Paris attacks by IS, which killed at least 130 people and injured hundreds of others.
“We must destroy Daesh wherever it is, cut its financial resources, hunt down its leaders, dismantle its networks and reconquer the territory it controls”.
French President Francois Hollande says the unprecedented gathering of world leaders next week at a climate summit in Paris is the best possible response to those who threaten his country with terror attacks.
“I thought what Hollande said was telling”, Biden told a handful of reporters after Obama’s meeting with the French president.
“Nous sommes tous francais (We are all French)”, Obama said, concluding with “Vive la France!”
Hollande said he will reaffirm that point when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days, a bid to further strengthen the fight against Islamic State militants.
“As we have repeatedly made clear, we stand in solidarity with Turkey and support the territorial integrity of our North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, Turkey”, Stoltenberg said after an emergency meeting of all 28 members requested by Ankara.
Nonetheless, Hollande said that he wished to “gather all countries” to carry out the fight.
“A no-flight zone would help to defend the Turkish border”, he said. I understand that people worry that something similar could happen here.
“Given Russia’s military capabilities and the influence they have on the Assad regime, them cooperating would be enormously helpful in bringing about resolution of the civil war in Syria”, Obama said, according to AFP.
Putin – whose forces have been focused on bombing enemies of Assad rather than ISIS – said he’s also ready to cooperate with the U.S.-led coalition of 60-plus countries. “We’ll do even more to prevent attacks at home”. The president also emphasized with the fact that Russian airstrikes were also targeting a moderate opposition in Syria supported by not only Turkey but a wide range of countries.
Elsewhere, three Russian TV journalists were wounded on the Turkish-Syrian border when an anti-tank shell or missile landed near their vehicle.
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When taking questions, however, Mr Hollande said France “would not act militarily on the ground”.
