France, Russia unify to fight Islamic State

HARI SREENIVASAN:

We return now to Russia, where The Wall Street Journal's Moscow bureau chief, Nathan Hodge, was at the press conference with Putin and Hollande. I talked to him earlier this evening.

So, Nathan, what sort of cooperation did these two leaders outline in their press conference today? For a lot of people, they might have assumed that France and Russia were already cooperating for the past week.

NATHAN HODGE, The Wall Street Journal:

Well, that's really been the question on everyone's mind here because both Mr. Putin and Mr. Hollande have said what they would like to see some kind of international coalition here, but none of the outlines have been clear. President Putin said that he could see a situation that they had agreed upon where there would be certain territories that would be agreed upon, where you can strike, where you can't strike. And there also seems to be an agreement here to go after the oil industry, or the oil trade that is one of the sources of income for Islamic State.

So, those seem to be two areas of cooperation here. But President Putin also outlined or made clear his anger over the downing of the Russian aircraft by a Turkish F-16 on Tuesday, saying that the Russians had actually been passing on information about the location of their aircraft.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

So, the Turks had released some audio just in the past 24 hours showing the Turkish military repeatedly telling the Russian pilot, "Hey, you're coming into our air space. Turn away, turn away." Did he respond to that at all today?

NATHAN HODGE:

Well, President Putin didn't respond directly to that, but he said any of the Turkish explanations were just, quote, "excuses." And yesterday, we also got some interesting footage, an interview that was aired with the aviator, the Russian aviator, who managed to eject and survive the incident, survive the shoot-down, and he had said that the crew of the aircraft had received no warning.

But what we've seen today, especially just advance of Mr. Hollande's visit, is a whipping up of some pretty strongly anti-Turkish sentiment and threats by Russian officials to retaliate, not with military force, but to respond economically. Turkey has a serious tourist trade with Russia, got strong ties with gas exports. And Russian officials have made clear that they're going to be looking for ways to respond and respond economically to what's happened.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

And do the leaders of Russia have public support for these moves?

NATHAN HODGE:

Well, that's an interesting question because Putin's ratings, which are steadily quite high, have reached record highs, in fact, since the intervention at the very end of September in Syria. There's been a promise in many ways of a clean and rather surgical war from the air.

Mr. Putin has made it pretty clear that he doesn't expect to see any forces on the ground, any Russian boots on the ground. Until the downing of this aircraft, there had been no combat deaths by Russian forces until the downing of the aircraft and the subsequent rescue mission, in which a Russian marine was also killed.

But this doesn't seem to have dented Putin's popularity in any way.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

It seems that the Turks are almost trying to ratchet things down while the Russians are trying to ratchet them up.

NATHAN HODGE:

Well, this has been a pattern as well. Putin is nothing if not a confident actor on the world stage at this point, and he's also playing, as well, to a domestic audience here.

There's been a fair amount of genuine anger as well directed at Turkey. We've seen rocks and eggs pelted at the Turkish embassy here. And there is very interesting incident today as well where a number of Turkish businessmen were detained.

Again, I think this is just a case where we're going to be seeing a fair amount of official anti-Turkish sentiment, but definitely there's been an outrage over the death of the Russian aviator. And a fairly belligerent and I would say a somewhat angry tone that we saw today in the press conference following the meeting with French president Hollande.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

There seems to be one crucial gap between France and Russia still, which is the agreement upon whether or not President Bashar al-Assad of Syria should stay or go. That has not been closed, right?

NATHAN HODGE:

Right. And this meeting really underscores how much distance remains between the West and between the Kremlin, when it comes to whether or not Bashar al-Assad should stay or should go. Putin reiterated today what we've heard from him before, which is that it's up to the Syrian people to decide. And he's also made clear that he sees the only legitimate force on the ground — that is, the only one that's capable of taking the fight to Islamic State — as Syria's — Syrian government forces, the Syrian army, and the forces on side with Bashar al-Assad.

So, it's — it's pretty clear here that there's not really been sort of a major closing of the gap between France, between the West, and between the Kremlin on this. And it's not clear whether this meeting will resolve that or will push the ball forward in any way towards some kind of resolution in Syria.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

Nathan Hodge, Moscow "Wall Street Journal" bureau chief — thanks so much for joining us.