Baghdad calls for more help from allies to push back ISIS
Western and Arab states carrying out airstrikes on ISIS backed Iraq’s plan Tuesday to retake territory from the jihadi movement after being accused by the Iraqi prime minister of not doing enough to help Baghdad roll back the insurgents, The Daily Star reports, citing news agencies.
Around 20 coalition ministers met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Paris in part to persuade his Shiite-led government to repair relations with the country’s Sunni minority to strengthen its campaign against ISIS.
But despite a show of unity, Abadi appeared to reject suggestions that Baghdad was paying insufficient attention to reconciliation with Sunnis. He said the world had failed Iraq, highlighting the significant number of foreign ISIS volunteers entering Iraq from countries in the coalition.
Iran and Russia did not attend Tuesday’s conference, nor was there a representative from Syria.
“The talks allowed us to reaffirm our unity and joint determination to fight the terrorists of ISIS,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said after the meeting.
“This military strategy is inseparable to implementing political reconciliation in Iraq,” he told reporters. “There isn’t on one side the military and on the other political.”