UK premier backing France in terror fight
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FRENCH President Francois Hollande received strong backing from British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday as global efforts to crush Islamic State gathered speed in the wake of the Paris attacks.
Speaking before meetings with US, Russian and German leaders in the coming days, Hollande said Britain and France had a “joint obligation” to strike at the jihadist group.
Cameron had earlier laid a wreath at the Bataclan concert hall where 90 people were killed on November 13.
“I firmly support the action President Hollande has taken to strike ISIL in Syria,” Cameron said after talks in Paris, using another acronym for IS. “It’s my firm conviction that Britain should do so too.”
Cameron has said he will make his case to the British parliament in the next few days about joining airstrikes on Syria.
While Britain has joined US-led coalition strikes on IS in Iraq, it has so far held back from hitting targets in Syria, where the jihadists also hold large swathes of territory.
The British leader also said he had offered France the use of a strategically located British airbase in Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, to facilitate airstrikes, and assistance with refueling French jets.
Hollande, who has said France is in a “war” against the jihadists, is embarking on what could be a defining week of his three-year-long presidency.
Today, he will fly to Washington for talks with President Barack Obama and tomorrow meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris.
The focus switches to Moscow on Thursday where he will meet President Vladimir Putin, who has pledged to work more closely with the West against IS following the Paris attacks and the downing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt last month.
Completing a series of meetings with each of France’s fellow UN Security Council members, Hollande will see Chinese President Xi Jinping for a working dinner in the French capital on Sunday.
Last Friday, the Security Council authorized countries to “take all necessary measures” to fight IS in a resolution that won unanimous backing in the wake of the bloodshed in Paris.
The measure drafted by France calls on all UN member states to “redouble and coordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist attacks.”
The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was yesterday steaming to the eastern Mediterranean to increase France’s ability to fly bombing sorties over Syria.
The US-led coalition has been pounding IS targets in Syria for over a year, but France only joined the campaign in September and has concentrated its airstrikes on the jihadists’ de facto capital, Raqa.
Russia has also bombed IS targets in Syria but Moscow has attracted criticism from the United States and others for bombing rebel groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
In a key development yesterday, Putin arrived in Tehran for his first trip to Iran in eight years. Iran has been Assad’s main backer since an uprising broke out against his rule in 2011 and escalated into a brutal civil war.
Moscow’s recognition that an airliner that crashed over Egypt with the deaths of 224 mainly Russians on board was brought down by an IS bomb appears to have strengthened its resolve to put aside differences with Paris and work together against the jihadists.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, arrived in Abu Dhabi for talks on efforts to build a Syrian opposition coalition to lead peace talks with Damascus.
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