Hollande said he would next week discuss his proposal with US President Barack Obama and Putin, who has ordered his navy in the Mediterranean to establish contact with its French counterparts and work together “as allies”.
Advertisement
Moscow, meanwhile, issued a statement declaring its right to self-defence in the wake of the downing of the Russian passenger plane in Egypt. It vowed to hunt the perpetrators “until all persons involved in this crime are identified, found and held accountable wherever they are”.
“Our Western partners realised the lack of prospects for the approach that many of them had taken”, Russia’s top diplomat said, referring to the insistence in the West that Assad should immediately step down.
The president’s Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters earlier Thursday that Obama is using his overseas trip to build more support for fighting the militant group that has claimed attacks in a number of countries in recent weeks.
The USA side insists on the immediate resignation of Bashar al-Assad, but it is the Syrians who have to make a decision on the matter, Kerry added.
The US president also said he could close the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba while keeping Americans safe, but acknowledged he would face tough resistance from Congress.
The future of Mr Assad is still a big sticking-point.
“The bottom line is: I do not foresee a situation in which we can end the civil war in Syria while Assad remains in power”, Obama said. You would think that the Russian President stating publicly that ISIS is receiving money from 40 different countries, including G20 members, would be “newsworthy”. Instead, he deployed even-mannered restraint when asked to assess the efficiency of the U.S.-led coalition’s air war against IS, which has thus far fallen woefully short of Obama’s goal of defeating the extremist group.
As France called for cooperation in fighting the Islamic State, the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry announced it is sending a warship to support French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which is being deployed to carry out strikes against Islamic State in Syria. “The same as we did after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001”, Lavrov said.
The story most likely to be told about the demise of ISIS across the Middle East will be Russian Federation and Iran doing what Obama could not, with the help of formerly enervated Europeans energized by brutal Islamic State attacks on their soil.
“We will search for them everywhere, no matter where they are hiding”, Putin said of the perpetrators.
“While the self-declared Islamic State… has grabbed headlines with its exhibitionist violence, the Syrian government has systematically violated every global law aimed at protecting civilians”, the group wrote.
Advertisement
Syrian sources maintained that the Russian intervention has not just begun a real fight against Daesh, but has also ensured that the attempts to break up Syria will fail and that it will remain one sovereign country.
