Eurasia Press & News
French President Francois Hollande called on Wednesday for an international conference to discuss ways of tackling “Islamic State” insurgents who have seized control of territory in Iraq and Syria.
Hollande did not say when such a meeting could be held or who would be invited but said a global strategy was needed to combat the insurgents.
“We can no longer keep to the traditional debate of intervention or non-intervention,” Hollande said.
“We have to come up with a global strategy to fight this group, which is structured, has significant financing, very sophisticated weapons and threatens countries like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon,” he said.
The “Islamic State” has captured wide swathes of northern Iraq since June, executing non-Sunni Muslim captives and minorities, displacing tens of thousands of people and drawing the first US air strikes in the region since Washington withdrew troops in 2011.
France, which has close ties with Iraq’s Kurdish regional government, started delivering weapons to Kurdish fighters on Friday to help stop an advance by “Islamic State” into the Kurdish region.
