AFP, Paris, 15 Sep 2014 – The world’s top diplomats pledged 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 organizations, including the United States, Russia and China, gathered in Paris as the brutal beheading over the weekend of a third Western hostage focused 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 jeopardizing 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 percent of its territory.
Opening the conference, French President Francois Hollande emphasized there was “no time to lose” in the fight against the jihadists.
“The fight of the Iraqis against terrorism is our fight as well,” Hollande stressed, urging “clear, loyal and strong” global support for Baghdad.
The international community is scrambling to contain the IS jihadists — who have rampaged across Iraq and Syria and could number as many as 31,500 fighters, according to the CIA.
As if to underscore the urgency of the campaign, France’s defence minister announced just hours ahead of the conference it was joining Britain in carrying out reconnaissance flights in support of the US air campaign against the jihadists.
Shortly afterwards, two French Rafale fighter jets took off from the Al-Dhafra base in the United Arab Emirates, an AFP correspondent reported.

– All bases covered –
The Paris conference was one of a series of diplomatic gatherings in the run-up to a United Nations General Assembly later this week.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said meetings would come “thick and fast” in the coming days and his French counterpart Laurent Fabius said there would soon be a conference on Islamic State funding organized by Bahrain.
Kerry has been criss-crossing the region in a bid to build as broad a coalition as possible and said over the weekend that “all bases were covered” in terms of implementing US President Barack Obama’s strategy to destroy the jihadists.
Obama’s plan includes air strikes in Syria and expanded operations in Iraq, where US aircraft have carried out more than 160 strikes since early August.
The US leader also foresees training “moderate” Syrian rebels to take on IS and to reconstitute the Iraqi army, parts of which fled an IS blitzkrieg across northern and western Iraq.
Hollande said the international community “needs to find a durable solution in the place where the (IS) movement was born. In Syria.”
“The chaos is benefiting the terrorists. We therefore need to support those who can negotiate and make the required compromises to secure the future of Syria,” said Hollande.
“They are the forces of the democratic opposition. They need to be backed by all means,” added the president.
The coalition received a boost when Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott pledged to deploy 600 troops to the United Arab Emirates, a regional Washington ally.
Ten Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, are among the countries backing the coalition.
Speaking in Paris, a US official said the number of countries signing on was “going up almost every hour”, from Europe and the Middle East right across to Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

The United States insisted Monday that it was opposed to military cooperation with Iran.
The gruesome beheading of British aid worker David Haines increased the urgency of the Paris talks.
Haines was the third Western hostage to be beheaded by the militants in less than a month. IS released a video Saturday showing his killing and issued a death threat against another British captive, Alan Henning.