Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has called on European states to participate in airstrikes against Daesh terrorists in Syria and Iraq in a bid to contain the flow of migrants to Europe.
“Countries adjoining Syria and Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and others are bearing the brunt of millions of people fleeing into their borders and then into Europe. That’s why I believe the Europeans must be involved in the coalition airstrikes and the effort in Syria and Iraq,” Bishop was quoted as saying in a Monday report by local daily The Australian.
Bishop’s remarks in an interview with the daily came as the Australian government is due to consider a US proposal for Australia’s military to join the airstrike campaign against alleged Daesh-linked targets in Iraq and Syria.
This is while such airstrikes by a US-led international coalition has been widely criticized as largely ineffective and has failed to remove the foreign-backed Takfiri militants from any parts of Iraq or Syria.
Syria, meanwhile, is also opposed to the airstrikes, saying that the air campaign is being conducted without authorization from the Syrian government under the pretext of attacking the very terrorists that the US and its European and regional allies have supported since 2011 in an overt effort to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
A growing number of the Daesh-linked terrorists in both Iraq and Syria have come from numerous European states, with Western authorities failing to stop the flow of the militants to the region – mostly through Turkey – despite pledges to do so.
According to the UN refugee agency, nearly 300,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean this year, with most of them fleeing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and a number of African countries.
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source : Agencies
Monday
31 August 2015
10:56:03 AM
708496
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has called on European states to participate in airstrikes against Daesh terrorists in Syria and Iraq in a bid to contain the flow of migrants to Europe.