By Jaime Ortega.
The president of France, François Hollande, said Saturday to his American counterpart, Barack Obama, that Paris will support Washington’s efforts in Iraq “ignoble actions against the terrorist group Islamic State (IS)”.
“The president has reaffirmed that France will take its place on a device that brings together the United States and to all countries that wish to join the action requested by the Security Council,” the UN said the head of the French state in a statement, in which he did not specify the nature of support to Washington.
After talking on the phone with Obama, Hollande said that Paris and Washington “share the same outrage and the same determination” and reiterated “its position and supported the actions decided by the United States.”
“They examined all the modalities of cooperation to help forces fighting the IS and emergency assistance to threatened populations,” according to the statement issued by the Elysee Palace, seat of the French presidency.
Earlier, Obama had said that the governments of France and Britain will join the humanitarian support of the people of Kurdistan.
In the telephone conversation, French President American president moved to Paris has initiated contacts with the European Union (EU) to “provide urgently needed assistance to the people” in northern Iraq.
Hollande and Obama also discussed the “open for longer term help Iraq to find the exercise of sovereignty over its entire territory options.”
France sent aid material
France begins sending “in the coming hours” first aid kits in northern Iraq, said on Saturday the French president, François Hollande, who called for a “national unity government” is formed there.
In a telephone conversation with President of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, Hollande told him “the will of France to stand with the victims of the ongoing charges of the Islamic State (IS) civilian populations.”
“France will proceed in the coming hours the first deliveries of first aid kits,” Hollande said Barzani, according to a statement released by the French presidency soon after Barack Obama, showed the support of Paris Washington’s actions in Iraq.
In his conversation with Barzani, Hollande said that he attempts to mobilize the international community and, in this regard, said he has asked the European Union (EU) to urgently take necessary measures “to respond to the immediate humanitarian needs.”
He reiterated that France “will take its place on a device that brings together the United States and to all countries that wish to join the action requested by the Security Council,” UN.
The French presidency said Hollande is “more convinced than ever that the solution to the crisis is also hitting Iraq policy” and therefore, it is necessary that “every effort is made to form a national unity government” in the country.
On 10 June, the EI controlled Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, and since then fighting in the north of the country to expand its declared “caliphate”, seizing cities like Sinjar, where it triggered a humanitarian crisis denounced by the UN more than 120,000 displaced.
Fifth message from Pope Francisco
The conflict in Iraq has also spoken Francisco Saturday the pope, who called on the international community to “protect all victims of violence in Iraq” by a message posted on his official profile on the social network Twitter.
This is the fifth post on the situation in Iraq Pope published within 24 hours in your profile, followed by more than 16 million people and is available in nine languages, including Arabic.
This Friday, the Vatican issued the Pope’s decision to send in northern Iraq to the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, aiming mainly to express the population to its proximity and Christians solidarity.
