French President Francois Hollande meets in Paris Monday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and European and Arab foreign ministers for talks on responding to President Obama’s call for a broad coalition against Islamic State militants.
Secretary Kerry comes to Paris after a week of talks in Baghdad, Amman, Jeddah, Ankara, and Cairo trying to rally Arab leaders to join the U.S. coalition against the Islamic State.
U.S. officials say there is broad agreement among Arab leaders about the severity of the threat and what they can do to undermine the Islamic State ideology and restrict its flow of financing and foreign fighters.
So far, only the United States has taken military action in Iraq. France says it is willing to join those airstrikes, as have other Arab nations, but that has yet to be approved by the new government in Baghdad.
These talks are meant to lead up to the U.N. General Assembly where there is expected to be more public demonstrations of who will do what in this coalition.
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