President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the U.S. stands in “total solidarity” with France in the wake of the deadly terror attacks there and pledged to do more to crush ISIS.
Obama, standing alongside visiting French President Francois Hollande, said the types of attacks that left 130 dead just under two weeks ago in Paris “can not be tolerated.”
“This was an attack on our free and open society,” Obama said and stressed “Americans will not be terrorized.”
“We cannot succumb to fear,” Obama said.
As his nation reels from the deadly Paris attacks, Hollande has been on a mission to boost the coalition that’s aiming to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Those efforts have included meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday and planned meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday.
“We share the same trust in freedom,” Hollande said on Tuesday of the relationship between the U.S. and France.
While the two leaders expressed solidarity it was a tete-a-tete further complicated by Turkey’s shoot-down of a Russian warplane.
On Tuesday, Obama stressed that Russia could play a role in these efforts only if it is willing to focus on defeating ISIS.
The U.S. and Russia have been at odds over Moscow’s support of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
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The White House asserts that Assad’s brutal response to anti-government protests plunged the country into civil war — a protracted bloodshed which has destabilized the region. Russia counters that Assad’s leadership is key to regional stability and Moscow’s airstrikes were aimed at crippling ISIS fighters, not anti-Assad rebels.
“Hollande needs to try to create a reasonably coherent coalition to fight ISIS, and even though the U.S. and Russia are stuck on the Assad issue,” said Nina Khrushcheva, dean of the New School’s Milano School of International Affairs. “I imagine Hollande hopes to convince the two to partner with France even if they can’t partner with each other.”
Hollande’s meeting with Merkel may also prove beneficial in that the German chancellor could potentially influence Putin’s position on Assad, Khrushcheva said.
Cameron announced on Monday that he will ask the British parliament for approval to begin bombing ISIS targets in Syria. Last week, in an operation that was in coordination with U.S. forces, French fighter jets launched a series of airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria — efforts that came just two days after the terrorist group claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks in Paris.








