Iraq wins world of military help

Paris: The world’s top diplomats pledged on 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 organisations, including the United States, Russia and China, gathered in Paris as the brutal beheading over the weekend of a third Western hostage focussed participants' minds. The pledge came as US 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 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 per cent of its territory. The statement did not mention of Syria, where the extremists hold a quarter of the country and where  Bashar al-Assad still had friends around the Paris conference table.