Washington: US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday urged Russia and Turkey to avoid escalation over Turkey's downing of a Russian plane along the Turkish-Syrian border.
The leaders said details are still emerging on the incident. "Turkey, like every country, has the right to defend its territory and its airspace," Obama, speaking alongside Hollande, said at a joint news conference at the White House.
"It's very important right now for us to make sure that both the Russians and the Turks are talking to each other to find out exactly what happened and take measures to discourage any kind of escalation," Obama said.
He said, "Russia is welcomed to be part of this broad-based coalition against ISIS. We may differ with Russia policy elsewhere but we should agree that we are all working to defeat ISIS. We must work toward de-escalation between Turkey and Russia. Russia could be more helpful in stopping ISIS."
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