Paris Meeting Vows to Back Iraq Militarily as Baghdad 'Regrets' Iran Absence
The world's top diplomats pledged Monday to support Iraq in its fight against Islamic State militants by "any means necessary," including "appropriate military assistance," as leaders stressed the urgency of the crisis.
Representatives from around 30 countries and international organizations, including the United States, Russia and China, gathered in Paris as the brutal beheading over the weekend of a third Western hostage focused participants' minds.
The pledge came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stepped up efforts to forge a broad anti-jihadist coalition.
In a joint statement issued after the talks, diplomats vowed to support Baghdad "by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance, in line with the needs expressed by the Iraqi authorities, in accordance with international law and without jeopardizing civilian security."
They stressed IS extremists were "a threat not only to Iraq but also to the entire international community" and underscored the "urgent need" to remove them from Iraq, where they control some 40 percent of its territory.
However, the final statement made no mention of Syria, where the extremists hold a quarter of the country and where the regime of Bashar Assad still had friends around the Paris conference table, including Russia.
Opening the conference, French President Francois Hollande emphasized there was "no time to lose" in the fight against the jihadists.
"The fight of the Iraqis against terrorism is our fight as well," Hollande stressed, urging "clear, loyal and strong" global support for Baghdad.
Iraqi President Fuad Masum also stressed the urgency of the crisis, saying there was a risk the militants could overrun more countries in the region.
"We are still asking for regular aerial operations against terrorist sites. We have to pursue them wherever they are. We need to dry up their sources of finance," added the Iraqi leader.
The international community is scrambling to contain the IS jihadists -- who have rampaged across Iraq and Syria and could number as many as 31,500 fighters, according to the CIA.
As if to underscore the urgency of the campaign, France's defense minister announced just hours ahead of the conference it was joining Britain in carrying out reconnaissance flights in support of the U.S. air campaign against the jihadists.
Shortly afterwards, two French Rafale fighter jets took off from the al-Dhafra base in the United Arab Emirates, an Agence France-Presse correspondent reported.
The Paris conference was one of a series of diplomatic gatherings in the run-up to a United Nations General Assembly later this week.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said meetings would come "thick and fast" in the coming days and his French counterpart Laurent Fabius said there would soon be a conference on Islamic State funding organized by Bahrain.
Kerry has been criss-crossing the region in a bid to build as broad a coalition as possible and said over the weekend that "all bases were covered" in terms of implementing U.S. President Barack Obama's strategy to destroy the jihadists.
Obama's plan includes air strikes in Syria and expanded operations in Iraq, where U.S. aircraft have carried out more than 160 strikes since early August.
The U.S. leader also foresees training "moderate" Syrian rebels to take on IS and to reconstitute the Iraqi army, parts of which fled an IS blitzkrieg across northern and western Iraq.
While there was no mention of Syria in the final statement, Hollande said the international community "needs to find a durable solution in the place where the (IS) movement was born. In Syria."
"The chaos is benefiting the terrorists. We therefore need to support those who can negotiate and make the required compromises to secure the future of Syria," said Hollande.
"They are the forces of the democratic opposition. They need to be backed by all means," added the president.
The coalition received a boost when Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott pledged to deploy 600 troops to the United Arab Emirates, a regional Washington ally.
Ten Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, are among the countries backing the coalition.
Speaking in Paris, a U.S. official said the number of countries signing on was "going up almost every hour," from Europe and the Middle East right across to Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Russia on Monday offered its help in the international fight against the Islamic State as global powers step up efforts to help Iraq battle jihadists.
"We have got a contribution to make to the joint efforts in the specific area of ensuring security in Iraq through consolidating society and mobilizing it in a fight with terrorism and extremism," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Paris.
"We will do this in parallel with promoting a broader aim of starting a comprehensive, deep analysis of every aspect of terrorist threats," Lavrov said in remarks released by his ministry.
"We are also providing military and other assistance to Syria and other countries in the region which face -- maybe to a lesser extent -- a serious terrorist threat," Lavrov added.
"These are our partners in Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and Jordan."
In July, Moscow announced it was delivering combat helicopters and fighter jets to Iraq.
Russia, which is locked in a showdown with the West over Ukraine, said last week that unilateral U.S. air strikes in Syria would be a crude violation of international law.
Later on Monday, Iraq's foreign minister voiced "regret" that Iran was not invited to the Paris.
"We insisted that Iran be present. However, it's not us that took the decision. We regret the absence of Iran at this conference," Ibrahim al-Jaafari told reporters.
"All countries are affected by the Daesh (IS) problem and Iran is a neighboring country that has several times given us its support," added the minister.
An elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the Qods Force, and allied militias are reportedly on the ground in Iraq fighting IS. Iran, like Iraq, is majority Shiite, while IS is made up of Sunni fighters who target Shiite Muslims.
Jaafari said nations attending the Paris conference on Iraq had not spelled out specifically what role they intended to play in the U.S.-led fight against the militants.
"We didn't go into details this morning. The different parties all had positive reactions concerning the current situation and the support they will give to Iraq," he said.
Jaafari said the "liberation" of the northern city of Mosul from the extremists was a "strategic objective" of Baghdad and voiced optimism that it could soon be retaken.
"Thanks to the military operations we are going to carry out, I think it will not be too difficult to succeed. We will not finish immediately but I think that in the medium term, we will succeed in liberating the city of Mosul," he said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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