French President Francois Hollande and US President Barack Obama pledged their solidarity in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), declaring that they would step up strikes in Syria and Iraq, but neither committed to boots on the ground. “We are prepared to work with you”.
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“Russia is the outlier”, Obama said.
“A strategy would be how do we mobilize support for the remnants of the Syrian Free Army, and it might require combat troops to inspire an global effort”, the former Florida governor said on CNN’s “New Day”.
Obama has been criticized by Republicans and some Democrats for not further ramping up the war on the Islamic State, and new polls show that the public has little confidence in his handling of the threat.
Sitting down to talks with Hollande at the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed to the November 13 assaults in Paris which 130 people were killed, and the IS-claimed bombing of a Russian jetliner over Egypt on October 31, with the loss of all 224 people onboard.
The two met at the White House on Tuesday.
“I think this is a good proposal and tomorrow President Hollande will talk to us in greater detail about it. We would be ready to seriously consider the necessary measures for this”, Lavrov said in Moscow.
However, in what could prove a stumbling block to cooperation between Moscow and the West, Putin and Hollande remained at odds on Thursday over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Putin also said Russian Federation would keep cooperating with the United States and its partners to fight Islamic State in Syria, but that cooperation will be in jeopardy if there are any repeats of the shooting down of the jet. “If it was an American aircraft, would they have struck an American?…What we hear instead is they have nothing to apologize for”.
The U.S. president charged that Russian air activity near the Turkey-Syria border has contributed to the crisis.
The president said the shootdown underscored an “ongoing problem” with Russia’s military operations in Syria, where the Russians have been targeting groups near the Turkish border.
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.
Obama and Hollande did not comment on the downing of the Russian plane as they appeared briefly before reporters Tuesday morning.
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Hollande reiterated that Assad, a key Moscow ally, “has no place in the future of Syria”.
