Officials in Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member, say their forces gave numerous warnings before firing.
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“We view the U.S.-led coalition with respect and stand ready to cooperate with it”, Putin said. It was the second day of airstrikes from the carrier that recently arrived off Syria in the Mediterranean.
“We have agreed… That we will exchange information about which territories are occupied by the healthy part of the opposition rather than terrorists, and will avoid targeting them with our airstrikes”, Putin said.
Scores of heads of state and government, including Obama, will attend the summit that begins next week.
“He has been the problem – he can not be the solution”, Hollande said.
“Russia is the outlier”, Obama said.
Obama says a coalition of 65 countries is pushing back against the Islamic State, from places as far-flung as Australia and Southeast Asia. “Russia right now is a coalition of two: Iran and Russian Federation supporting Assad”.
Obama said that the USA government was still gathering details on the incident.
Obama maintained that Turkey had a right to defend its airspace and charged that Russian air activity near the Turkey-Syria border has contributed to the crisis.
The President encouraged calm and cooperation between the two countries in a region that seems unable to escape the grip of war.
Obama is urging both Turkey and Russia to take measures “to discourage any kind of escalation” over the downing of the Russian warplane. The incident also shows a need to move forward quickly on a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Syria, he said. Hollande on Monday recalled a 2 a.m. phone call from his American counterpart with a message that the US stood by France and was ready to offer unlimited assistance, and work jointly to fight terrorism.
“We agreed on a very important issue: To strike the terrorists only, Daesh and the jihadi groups only, and not to strike the forces and the groups that are fighting against the terrorists”, Hollande said after the meeting, referring to IS by its Arabic acronym.
“If we’re talking about France sending an entire regiment or brigade to Syria, it certainly could not do that without U.S. help”, Shurkin said. The French president, however, stressed the importance of preventing an escalation “that would be extremely damageable”.
“We hope that they refocus their attention on what is the most substantial threat, and that they serve as a constructive partner”, Obama said of Russian Federation.
Following his visit to the U.S., Hollande is expected to travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Western nations insist Assad needs to step down for peace to take hold in Syria.
The shootdown of the plane further illustrates the complex challenge before Obama, Hollande and other world leaders trying to destroy the Islamic State.
Both Presidents don’t know when Assad will leave office.
“And I expect to be in communications, potentially directly, with (Turkish) President sometime over the next several days”, Obama told a crowded joint news conference with the French President Francois Hollande. The group appears to now be focusing on targets outside its base in Syria and Iraq, including attacks in Lebanon and Turkey and the downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the brutal November 13 attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, as well as the Halloween bombing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt that killed 224. Obama spoke warmly of America’s affection for France, noting that he keeps a photograph by his bed of his wife, Michelle, and him kissing in the city’s Luxembourg Gardens.
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The French president said he is working to persuade world leaders to act with greater intensity against the Islamic State.
