Obama, Hollande Call on Turkey and Russia to Prevent Escalation after Jet Downing
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande 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
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 the so-called "moderate" groups fighting in Syria against Syrian army forces.
"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, Reuters reported.
If Russia directs its energies toward Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forces, "some of those conflicts or potentials for mistakes or escalation are less likely to occur," Obama said.
Russia is supporting Syrian Preseident Bashar Assad's government. Western nations insist Assad needs to step down for peace to take hold in Syria.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the United States believed the Russian jet was hit inside Syrian air space after a brief incursion into Turkish air space. The assessment was based on heat observed from the jet, the official said.
Russia condemned the Turkish action, vowing severe consequences.
Obama and Hollande spoke at a White House news conference as the French president visited Washington to coordinate a stepped-up military campaign against ISIL following the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
Hollande will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday in Moscow as part of a series of talks to increase international pressure on ISIL after the Paris attacks.
"I will ask President Putin, as I've done before ... that the strikes must be against Daesh (ISIL), against terrorism," Hollande said.
France has stipulated that for closer coordination with Russia to occur, Moscow must focus its strikes solely on ISIL 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.
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.