Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and French leader Francois Hollande have agreed to step up cooperation between their military and intelligence services in Syria.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and French leader Francois Hollande have agreed to step up cooperation between their military and intelligence services in Syria.
“It has been agreed to assure closer contact and coordination between the military and security service agencies of the two countries in actions against terrorist groups by Russia and France in Syria,” the Kremlin said in a statement following a phone call between Mr Putin and Mr Hollande.
Mr Hollande will meet US counterpart Barack Obama in Washington on November 24 and then Mr Putin in Moscow two days later to discuss the fight against the ISIS group after the Paris attacks, his office said. Mr Hollande said in a speech Monday that he wanted to meet the leaders in the coming days to strengthen international coordination against ISIS, which has claimed responsibility for the carnage in the French capital.
Mr Putin ordered the Russian Navy in the eastern Mediterranean to coordinate its actions on the sea and in the air with the French Navy, after the Kremlin used long-range bombers and cruise missiles in Syria and announced it would expand its strike force by 37 planes.
After a telephone conversation with Mr Hollande, Mr Putin ordered the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean to establish contact with its French counterparts and work together “as allies” in a campaign against the ISIS group in Syria. “It’s necessary to establish direct contact with the French and work with them as allies,” Mr Putin told the military top brass at a meeting after Mr Hollande said the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle would be deployed in the eastern Mediterranean.
The German police hunting for suspects in the Paris attacks said Tuesday they had arrested seven people near the Belgian border, but cautioned they had established no links so far to the jihadist violence.
Police special units in the western city of Aachen arrested one man and two women of foreign nationalities in the morning, and four more men later in the day, the police said. The suspects “could be connected with the Paris attacks”, Aachen police spokesman Werner Schneider told news channel NTV.
He cautioned, however, that “either these indications will be confirmed or they could all go up into thin air”. A police statement said: “Following the terrorist attacks last Friday in Paris and the search for the perpetrators and masterminds, the Aachen police received a report about suspicious persons in Alsdorf near Aachen.”
“In this context, there were three arrests this morning. Two women and a man were overwhelmed by special forces and taken into custody. Investigations are currently ongoing.” It added that the police had conducted further operations in the area which it could not detail “for tactical reasons”. Four more men were arrested later in the day, the police said.
Meanwhile, the brother of key Paris attack suspect Salah Abdeslam on Tue-sday urged his brother to surrender as the police in France and Belgium stepped up their hunt for the fugitive. “I advise him to surrender to the police,” his brother Mohamed Abdeslam, who was himself arrested and freed without charge in Belgium, said, adding that it would allow the “legal system to shed light” on the case.
