US, France stand united against IS: Obama

The U.S.is deeply skeptical of Putin’s motivations, given the Russian leader’s long-standing support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We are here to declare that the United States and France stand united in total solidarity to deliver justice to terrorists and those who sent them, and to defend our nations”, Obama said.

President Barack Obama listens to French President Francois Hollande over Omaha Beach during a joint French-US D-Day commemoration ceremony.

The “murderous ideology” of the Islamic State “poses a serious threat to all of us”, Obama said.

He also said that the United States would not succumb to fear.

And he says that Russian Federation, on the other hand, is part of “a coalition of two”. France, with US support, has ratcheted up its airstrikes against ISIS after the attacks. “Rather, they focused their violence on the very spirit of France and, by extension, on all liberal democracies”, Mr Obama said.

UPDATE: 12:11 p.m. EDT – President Barack Obama expressed Tuesday solidarity with France and vowed to keep the nation safe amid concerns that terror attacks that unfolded across Paris earlier this month could be replicated in the U.S.

Obama took a more personal and forceful approach than his past speeches on the Paris attacks, noting that he has a photograph with his wife in the Jardin du Luxembourg by his bedside, and noting that “we Americans love France because we dedicate ourselves to the same ideals”.

Hollande said the plane conflict showed that the four-year civil war in Syria must be brought to an end.

The USA and French leaders said details are still emerging on the incident, which saw Turkey shoot down the plane along the Turkish-Syrian border.

“We’ll have to pool our resources much more effectively together than we have in the past”, Obama said.

The Turkish military Tuesday announced it shot down a Russian military aircraft near the Syrian border after it ignored multiple warnings and entered Turkish airspace, a charge Moscow immediately denied.

Meanwhile, Hollande said he plans to tell Russian President Vladimir Putin that France can work with Russia, if Moscow concentrates its military action in Syria on fighting the Islamic State group.

He was taken into custody on Monday moments after giving a television interview in which he acknowledged he had given shelter to two of the alleged Paris attackers and said he didn’t know who they were or what they planned.

The USA has deployed more than 3,000 troops to Iraq to train and assist security forces there.

“Russia right now is a coalition of two – Iran and Russian Federation – supporting Assad”, Obama said.

“In short”, he said, “this was not only a strike against one of the world’s great cities, it was an attack against the world itself”.

On Tuesday, Obama stressed that Russian Federation could play a role in these efforts only if it is willing to focus on defeating ISIS. In Washington, the House has passed legislation tightening vetting for refugees from Syria and Iraq, though the White House contends the additional restrictions would effectively block people from those countries from coming to the U.S.

Both Obama and Hollande pointedly ignored the plane episode in their opening remarks at a White House news conference and, when pressed for a response, defended North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Turkey.

“The United States is certainly pulling more than our own weight when it comes to the contribution behind this coalition”, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.

“We feel more like working with him than the United States does, but we reached the conclusion that we had to”, the official said.