ANKARA, Turkey — Assembling a coalition to fight the militants from the Islamic State group is proving to be a complicated affair.
France is all in, but would like to invite Iran – against the wishes of the United States. The U.S. is pressing Turkey, which has resisted publicly endorsing the global strategy against the extremists, who are holding 49 Turkish hostages.
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Many world leaders want to act quickly, before the Islamic State group gains more territory. But it’s crucial to reach agreement on what the coalition is doing and why, particularly after bitter diplomatic divisions created by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a decade ago.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said as many as 40 countries have offered various levels of support – from humanitarian aid to cracking down on illicit cross-border funding and fighters that are flowing to the insurgents, to providing intelligence and supplies to rebels in Syria and security forces in Iraq.
But after more than a week of meetings with top NATO and Mideast officials, Kerry refused to say Friday precisely how a global campaign that is being pieced together by the U.S. would succeed in destroying the Islamic State group, which has taken over large parts of Iraq and Syria.
The U.S. needs serious support from regional players if it hopes to weaken the militants over the long term.
Kerry has persuaded key Arab allies to join a coalition of Mideast nations that pledged to curb the extremists’ resources, repudiate their ideology, provide humanitarian aid to its victims and potentially contribute to a military campaign.
THE CHALLENGE OF TURKEY
He’s had less success in getting Turkey to join in.
Visiting Ankara on Friday, he pressed Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to harden borders against fighters and funding flowing to the Islamic State militant group.
Turkey sits on the front line of the Islamic State group’s battleground in Iraq and safe haven in Syria. It already has helped refugees and cracked down on suspicious cross-border traffic from both countries.
But Turkey is in a tight spot, and the U.S. is being careful not to push too hard on its NATO ally as Turkish authorities grapple with trying to free the hostages, who include diplomats. The Turks were kidnapped from their consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul when it was overrun by the Islamic State group in June.
“They have a few sensitive issues,” Kerry told the BBC on Thursday. “We respect those sensitive issues, and we’re going to work with them very carefully.”
At the start of a meeting Friday with Kerry, Cavusoglu cited “challenges and threats” in Iraq and Syria.
The Sunni Muslim extremists also are holding several Americans hostage. After Washington launched more than 150 airstrikes against them in Iraq since last month, they have beheaded two U.S. freelance journalists who were working in Syria.
Senior U.S. officials who briefed reporters traveling with Kerry said Ankara already has been working against the Islamic State, including by recently denying about 6,000 people from entering Turkey and deporting 1,000 more who were deemed suspicious. But one of the U.S. officials said Turkey’s borders remain extremely porous.
The potential military campaign that the new coalition is planning is likely to include training and equipping moderate Syrian rebels and Iraqi forces, providing intelligence, and expanding airstrikes against extremists in Iraq and potentially into Syria.
THE ROLE OF FRANCE
France, which opposed the last U.S. war in Iraq, is ready to play a substantial role now, including with airstrikes.
French President Francois Hollande paid a bold visit Friday to Baghdad to bolster new Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as the Iraqi government struggles to unite the nation amid the rampage by the Islamic State group.
“In order to confront Daesh, we need aerial support from our allies,” al-Abadi said, referring to the Islamic State group by its Arabic acronym. “The French president promised me today that France will participate in this effort, hitting the positions of the terrorists in Iraq.”
France also has delivered arms to Kurdish authorities in Iraq and is hosting an international conference Monday on helping Iraq. Paris sees this as the first step in a long-term effort against Islamic State militants who have captured territory straddling the Syria-Iraq border with the goal of establishing a self-styled caliphate.
However, France doesn’t want to be a pawn in a U.S. game, and it disagrees with Washington on two key points: Iran and Syria.
The French are stopping short of possible action in Syria, at least for now, fearing that airstrikes on extremists in Syria could strengthen President Bashar Assad’s hand and raise international legal problems.
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