French President François Hollande will meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow Thursday to discuss “efforts to combat terrorism”, the Kremlin press service said, in a statement Wednesday.
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The extremist group claimed responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger plane over Egypt, when all 224 people onboard were killed, as well as the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
“We today agreed to intensify our joint work on the anti-terrorist track, to improve the exchange of information in the fight with terrorism, establish constructive work between our military specialists”, Putin said.
The French and Russian presidents remained at odds over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Russia and Iran whose ouster is sought by the U.S.-led coalition. Hollande underlined that “from France’s view, it’s clear that Assad does not have his place in Syria’s future”, while Putin said that the Syrian leader’s future “should be at the hands of the Syrian people”.
Estimates of ISIS militants range from 30,000 to 200,000 and the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS has recorded more than 10,000 ISIS deaths since the campaign began nine months ago, said U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken.
U.S. President Barack Obama has said Turkey has a right to defend its territory and airspace, and that the incident pointed to ongoing problems with Russia’s military operations in Syria, BBC News reports.
“The leaders agreed on the importance of de-escalating the situation and pursuing arrangements to ensure that such incidents do not happen again”, the White House said on Tuesday, referring to Obama’s telephone call to Erdogan. “We don’t want to exclude anyone”.
Putin has deployed missile cruisers in Syria, dismissing military communications with Ankara and instructing men to destroy potential threat without warning in response to Turkey shooting down a Russian fighter jet in the Syrian border. “Change your heading south immediately”, the tape said. The Netherlands, meanwhile, is considering expansion of its air attacks against ISIS in Iraq to targets in Syria. Now we learn that British prime-minister David Cameron is also seeking permission from the House of Commons to join the coalition to the fight this brutal terrorist group, which is now occupying a large part of Syria and Iraq.
While Russian Federation is backing a new diplomatic effort in Syria, Moscow still refuses to support steps that explicitly call for removing Assad from power.
The two countries truly resolved to fight this brutal group of terrorists are France and Russian Federation.
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The suspected ringleader of the deadly Paris attacks and an accomplice planned to carry out a suicide attack on the city’s La Defense business district the following week, the chief prosecutor said Tuesday.
