PARIS: The world’s top diplomats yesterday pledged 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 organisations, including the United States, Russia and China, gathered in Paris as the savage beheading over the weekend of a third Western hostage raised the stakes in the battle against the marauding jihadists.
In a joint statement, 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 jeopardising 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 the territory.
However, the final statement made no mention of Syria, where extremists hold a quarter of the country and where Bashar Al Assad’s regime still had friends around the Paris conference table, including Russia.
Opening the conference, French President Francois Hollande said 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 said, urging “clear, loyal and strong” global support for Baghdad.
Co-hosting the meeting, Iraqi President Fuad Masum also underlined the urgency of the crisis, warning that 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,” the Iraqi leader said.
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 stress the urgency of the campaign, France’s defence minister announced just hours ahead of the conference that Paris was joining Britain in carrying out reconnaissance flights in support of the US air campaign against the jihadists.
Shortly afterwards, two French Rafale fighter jets took off from the Al Dhafra base in the United Arab Emirates.
And in Brussels, Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged military action, calling IS “a group of terrorists with whom there is no chance whatsoever to negotiate.”
“We are not building a military coalition for an invasion... but for a transformation as well as for the elimination of ISIL,” Kerry told reporters, using an alternative name for IS.
“We are fighting an ideology, not a regime.”
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.”
Hollande said the moderate Syrian opposition should be “backed by all means”.
And Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that while strikes on Syria would be a far more complicated matter than in Iraq, “we haven’t ruled it out.”
However, Iran, which was not invited to the conference, said it had rejected US overtures to help in the fight against the militants.
Iran, like Iraq, is majority Shia, while IS is made up of Sunni fighters who target Shia Muslims.
In a rare direct intervention into diplomacy, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Washington had reached out through the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, requesting a meeting to discuss cooperation against Islamic State.
Khamenei said that some Iranian officials had welcomed the contacts, but he had personally vetoed them.
“I saw no point in cooperating with a country whose hands are dirty and intentions murky,” the Iranian leader said in quotes carried on state news agency IRNA. He accused Washington of “lying” by saying it had excluded Iran from its coalition, saying it was Iran that had refused to participate.
Kerry ruled out cooperating with Iran on military action but said he was “open to have a conversation” with the authorities in Tehran over Iraq.
Hammond also struck a conciliatory note saying: “I think we should continue to hope that Iran will align itself broadly with the direction that the coalition is going.”
And Iraq’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari voiced “regret” Iran had not been invited to the conference.
AGENCIES
