Sunday Times 2
Kerry lands in Cairo for talks on anti-IS coalition
View(s):CAIRO, Sept 13 (AFP) -US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived today in Cairo on the latest leg of a regional tour to forge a coalition against Islamic State jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
Kerry is scheduled to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, centre, looks over papers while flying from Jordan to Iraq (AFP)
Relations between Washington and Cairo have been strained since the military’s overthrow of elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year, but the Egyptian government sees the fight against IS as its cause as well.
Morsi’s successor, the former army chief Sisi, is fighting Islamist militants in the restive Sinai Peninsula who have expressed support for the Islamic State.
But it appears unlikely that Egypt’s formidable army will make a significant military contribution to the fight in Iraq and Syria.
Washington is seeking a stamp of approval for its campaign from Egypt’s religious institutions, which include the prestigious Al-Azhar.
“One of the issues is to have their religious institutions to speak out against ISIL, to talk about it in Fridays sermons,” a US official travelling with Kerry told reporters.
“They (the Egyptians) are concerned about foreign fighters, an issue that has aggravated their domestic terrorism,” the official said.
Retired US general John Allen, the hawkish ex-commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan who also led troops in western Iraq, was named Friday to lead the international effort against Islamic State extremists.
Allen, 60, is on record saying that IS “is an entity beyond the pale of humanity and it must be eradicated. If we delay now, we will pay later.” Both the White House and the Pentagon stressed that the United States is now “at war” with the group that has seized large chunks of Iraq and Syria.
But Kerry appeared reluctant to use the term in a series of television interviews, speaking instead of a “major counterterrorism operation” as Washington expands its campaign against IS.
“The United States is at war with ISIL in the same way that we are at war with Al-Qaeda and its Al-Qaeda affiliates all around the globe,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, using another acronym by which the group is known.
Earlier Friday, French President Francois Hollande travelled to war-torn Iraq while Washington’s top diplomat Kerry was in neighbouring Turkey, ramping up efforts to address what they now see as the global threat posed by the jihadists.
Hollande thus became the first head of state to visit Iraq since the militants seized large parts of the country in June, and he said France was ready to step up its military involvement.
The French leader is trying to take a lead role in responding to the crisis and will host a conference on Iraq in Paris on Monday.
Kerry, speaking to reporters in Ankara, spoke of “a broad-based coalition with Arab nations, European nations, the United States and others.” Turkey is a fellow NATO member but has so far refused to open its air bases to US forces and other members of the coalition Washington is trying to put together against jihadists.
He held a two-hour meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
But a Turkish official told AFP that Ankara’s hands were tied because of the fate of 49 Turks, including children and diplomats, kidnapped by militants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June.
The previous day in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Kerry secured the backing of 10 Arab states for a global push to weaken IS, whose appeal has drawn volunteers from around the world.
In Cairo, Kerry will press his campaign to build a broad international coalition and will meet, among others, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.
However, Washington has insisted it will not work with Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad and his regime.