Obama, Hollande urge Russia to focus Syria attacks on Islamic State

Washington: US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande pressed Russia on Tuesday to focus its attacks in Syria on Islamic State militants after Turkey heightened tensions in the region by downing a Russian plane. Obama and Hollande also urged Russia and Turkey not to let the situation escalate after Turkey, a Nato ally, said it shot down a Russian warplane near the Turkish-Syrian border after it repeatedly violated Turkish air space. Obama said the United States did not have enough information yet to form conclusions about the incident, but added similar confrontations could be avoided if Russia stopped attacking “moderate” Syrian rebels who are battling forces loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. [caption id=“attachment_2520198” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  French President Francois Hollande and US President Barack Obama shake hands during a joint press conference at the White House. AP[/caption] “This points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operations in the sense that they are operating very close to a Turkish border and they are going after moderate opposition that are supported by not only Turkey but a wide range of countries,” Obama said. If Russia directs its energies towards Islamic State forces, “some of those conflicts or potentials for mistakes or escalation are less likely to occur,” Obama said. Russia is supporting Assad’s government. Western nations insist Assad needs to step down for peace to take hold in Syria. US  officials said the Russian aircraft’s entry into Turkish air space lasted seconds. Russia condemned the Turkish action, vowing severe consequences. “We must prevent an escalation. That would be extremely damaging,” Hollande said. Obama said,“Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its air space,” adding he expected to speak to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in coming days. Obama and Hollande spoke at a White House news conference as the French president visited Washington to coordinate a stepped-up military campaign against Islamic state following the 13 November attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. As the two men were talking, French and US jets destroyed an Islamic State command centre near Mosul in Iraq, a French official said. Hollande will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday in Moscow as part of a series of talks to increase international pressure on Islamic State after the Paris attacks. “I will ask President Putin, as I’ve done before … that the strikes must be against Daesh (Islamic State), against terrorism,” Hollande said. France has stipulated that for closer coordination with Russia to occur, Moscow must stop Assad from bombing civilians, focus its strikes solely on Islamic State and similar groups and commit seriously to finding a political solution without Assad. A second senior French official said Paris was under no illusion that getting Putin to coordinate more closely would be easy. “We feel more like working with him than the United States does, but we reached the conclusion that we had to,” the official said. “We have to try and get him on side.” Hollande said France was already coordinating with Russian ships in the eastern Mediterranean since the French Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier arrived in the region on the weekend. Reuters