“We cannot and we will not succumb to fear, nor can we allow fear to divide us”, Mr. Obama said. “There have been times in our history, in moments of fear, when we have failed to uphold our highest ideals and it has been to our lasting regret”, he said.
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Speaking at a news conference with French President Francois Hollande in Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama defended the right of Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member country, to defend itself.
President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande (frahn-SWAH’ oh-LAWND’) have started their Oval Office meeting on the global response to the Islamic State group.
“Given Russia’s military capabilities and given the influence they have on the Assad regime, them cooperating would be enormously helpful”, Obama said.
“We’re still getting the details of what happened”, he said.
Hollande added that a “joint response” is needed.
French president François Hollande is in the middle of his grand world tour to try and extract political pinky swears from as many leaders as possible when it comes to promising to help fight ISIS. Hollande said he will press Putin later this week when he visits Moscow to shift his attention to the Islamic State.
Obama said he’s been telling Putin for almost five years that propping up Assad will not make Russian Federation safer and that the Islamic State poses “an enormous long-term threat” to Russian Federation.
Noting that Russia lost hundreds of citizens when ISIL is believed to have blown up a Russian passenger jet, Obama said: “There is a potential convergence of interest”.
Obama praised France for keeping its promise to take in 30,000 refugees over the next two years.
Mr. Obama defended the Turkish strike that brought down the Russian plane.
Hollande said that France would continue to “intensify our strikes at the heart of the cities held by” ISIS, though would not intervene on the ground.
President Obama pledged Tuesday to step up assistance to France and other allies fighting the Islamic State, but stopped short of endorsing a French proposal for a new grand coalition that would include Russian Federation.
Obama said the United States did not have enough information yet to form conclusions about the incident, but said similar confrontations could be avoided in the future if Russian Federation stopped attacking “moderate” Syrian rebels who are battling forces loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Hollande’s meeting with Merkel may also prove beneficial in that the German chancellor could potentially influence Putin’s position on Assad, Khrushcheva said.
Hollande’s goal of cooperation between Moscow and Washington became even more complicated Tuesday, however, when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet it claimed violated its airspace.
Obama has faced criticism domestically for defending his current ISIS strategy and not announcing any plans to escalate US involvement. That’s the spirit that binds us to France.
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Hollande also says the Syrian refugee crisis is directly relevant to Europe.
