President Obama indicated on Tuesday that Russia is to blame for the downing of one of its planes over Turkey, and said the incident reveals the “ongoing problem with the Russian operation” in the region.
“Turkey has the right to defend itself and its airspace,” Obama said in a joint press conference with French President Francois Hollande.
The Obama administration has said repeatedly that Russia is acting outside the 65-nation coalition against the Islamic State, mostly because Russia continues to back Syrian President Bashar Assad. Other coalition members have said Assad’s exit is a necessary part of any answer to ending Syria’s civil war.
Obama said that if Russia were to join the coalition, “some of those conflicts or potential for mistakes are less likely to occur.”
The incident led to an emergency meeting of NATO on Tuesday, and left Russian President Vladimir Putin fuming over what he called a “stab in the back.”
In a joint press conference, Hollande agreed with Obama that Russia must focus its airstrikes on the Islamic State to avoid unnecessary conflicts and splintering of the coalition fighting the Sunni terrorist group. 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 nearly five years that propping up Assad will not make Russia safer and that the Islamic State poses “an enormous long-term threat” to Russia. The group’s bombing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula presents “a potential convergence of interests” among Russia, the U.S. and the international coalition, Obama said.
Russia is “the outlier” in the Syrian conflict now, but Obama hopes Moscow will train its bombs on the Islamic State to hasten peace there, he said.
NATO is looking into Tuesday’s incident “so we can find out what really happened and whether Turkey’s airspace was indeed entered into but we must prevent an escalation,” Hollande said.
Hopefully all parties can step back and find a way to serve everyone’s best interest, Obama said, underscoring the need for restraint between Turkey and Russia.
