The Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi will join representatives from 21 coalition countries in Paris today, as ways to curtail the finance and influence of the so-called Islamic State (IS) will be discussed.
United State Secretary of State John Kerry will not personally attend the conference, hosted by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. Kerry broke his leg in a cycling accident on Saturday, and will participate by telephone.
The US will be represented by Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and President Obama’s envoy for anti-ISIS coalition John Allen.
The self-proclaimed IS has made headline-grabbing gains in the last few weeks, capturing Ramadi in the western Iraqi Sunni province of Anbar, and the historic city of Palmyra in Syria. US strategy in the region has come under increasingly close scrutiny.
The Paris meeting is expected to examine ways of including anti-IS Sunni tribes in the fight to regain control of areas of Anbar.
Also attending is UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Philip Hammond, who outlined Britain’s aims in Paris, “Today’s conference is an opportunity to reaffirm our support for Iraqi forces, and assess what more we can do as a coalition.
“I will discuss with key partners the military campaign and the coalition’s efforts to cut off Isil’s [IS] finances, reduce the flow of fighters, undermine their brutal ideology, and stabilise areas liberated from Isil [IS].”
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