• Home
• /
• Europe

Hollande, Cameron kick off bid to rally global support against Daesh

Paris - Hollande said Britain and France had a "joint obligation" to strike at the militant group.

President Francois Hollande received strong backing from British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday as global efforts to crush Daesh gathered speed in the wake of the Paris attacks.
Speaking before he also meets the US, Russian and German leaders in the coming days, Hollande said Britain and France had a "joint obligation" to strike at the militant 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 Daesh in Syria," Cameron said after talks in Paris.
"It's my firm conviction that Britain should do so too," he added.
Cameron has said he will make his case to the British parliament in the coming days about joining air strikes on Syria.
While Britain has joined US-led coalition strikes on Daesh in Iraq, it has so far held back from hitting targets in Syria, where the militants 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 air strikes, and assistance with refuelling French jets.
Hollande, who has said France is in a "war" against the terrorists, is embarking on what could be a defining week of his three-year-old presidency.
On Tuesday, he will fly to Washington for talks with President Barack Obama and a day later will 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 Daesh 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.
The Security Council on Friday authorised countries to "take all necessary measures" to fight Daesh 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" committed by Daesh and other extremist groups linked to Al Qaeda.
Hollande said he hoped the resolution would "help mobilise nations to eliminate Daesh", using an alternative name for Daesh.
The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was steaming to the eastern Mediterranean on Monday to increase France's ability to fly bombing sorties over Syria.
The US-led coalition has been pounding Daesh targets in Syria for over a year, but France only joined the campaign in September and has concentrated its air strikes on the militants' de facto capital, Raqqa.
Russia has also bombed Daesh targets but Moscow has attracted criticism from the United States and others for bombing rebel groups opposed to Moscow's ally, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
In a key development on Monday, Putin arrived in Tehran on Monday for his first trip to Iran in eight years.
Iran has been Assad's other main backer since an uprising broke out against his rule in 2011 and escalated into a brutal civil war.