Breaking News

Anti-ISIS Conference In Paris Ends With Controversial Results

Anti-ISIS-Conference-Paris
The key players at Anti-ISIS Conference in Paris, France. Photo: BBC
On Monday, September 15, a conference called to discuss the strategy of the fight against ISIS was held in Paris. Led by the United States, 24 countries have decided to unite their efforts and expressed their readiness to make any necessary measures to combat the global threat. Furthermore, the US says nearly 40 countries have already offered to help fight the transnational jihadist movement.
Monday’s talks in Paris had been called to agree a strategy to combat ISIS, which the CIA estimates to have between 20,000 and 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria. Francois Hollande told the conference Islamic State represented a global threat.

According to The Guardian amid continuing uncertainty about who will do what in the coalition, urgent appeals were the order of the day. The French president Francois Hollande asked western and Arab countries to engage “clearly, loyally and strongly on the side of the Iraqi authorities”.
“There was no time to lose in dealing with the ISIS threat. Iraq’s fight against terrorism is also ours,” he said. The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said ISIS was neither “a state or representative of
Islam”, neither were its “throat-cutters.”
Earlier John Kerry said that US had Arab allies who were prepared to join in strikes on terrorists in Iraq.
READ ALSO: 
The question of participation of Iran in the coalition against ISIS was discussed at the conference. BBC informs that Iraq has criticized the decision not to invite Iran to an international summit on the IS threat.
Speaking after the conference ended, Mr. Jaafari, Foreign Minister of Iraq, said that he regretted the absence of Iran.
“Iran is our neighbour, it assisted us and it should have been present, but we are not the party responsible for inviting parties,” he added.
Last week the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, ruled out co-operation with Iran. Tehran acted in the same manner:
“I saw no point in cooperating with a country whose hands are dirty and intentions murky,” Iranian spiritual leader Khamenei said.
Together, Iran and Syria share most of Iraq’s borders, but relations between them and the US are fraught. Kerry’s spokesperson said there might be a future opportunity to talk to Iran – likely to be in the margin of talks at the UN later this month.
Arab participation in military action would give a wider sense of legitimacy to the campaign.

A senior western source told the Guardian that Saudi Arabia felt so threatened by ISIS that it was prepared to act in a frontline role. On Sunday, amid outrage over the ritualized killing of Haines, western diplomats reported that several Arab states – likely to include Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – had offered to join the US in carrying out air strikes.
Fuad Masoum, the Iraqi president, called for concerted action to defeat ISIS.
“We are asking for airborne operations to be continued regularly against terrorist sites. We must not allow them to set up sanctuaries. We must pursue them wherever they are. We must cut off their financing. We must bring them to justice and we must stop the fighters in neighbouring countries from joining them.”
It would be added that the US has already carried out multiple airstrikes in Iraq in support of troops who were being attacked by Islamic State fighters.

Iraq-Syria-Airstrikes-Against-ISIS
Photo: BBC

The US military said that the attacks took place on Sunday and Monday near Mount Sinjar and south-west of Baghdad. The US military statement said that the airstrike south-west of Baghdad was the first taken as part of “expanded efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions to hit [IS] targets” as Iraqi forces go on the offensive.
According to BBC the US has conducted a total of 162 airstrikes across Iraq since August 2014.

TELL YOUR FRIENDS