New York: The taking of a French hostage in Algeria will not deter French participation in a US-led coalition of nations against Isil militants, who have seized swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, France’s foreign minister said on Monday.
“We will do everything we can to liberate hostages,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters. “But a terrorist group cannot change France’s position.”
A French national was kidnapped in eastern Algeria on Sunday, France’s foreign ministry said, and his kidnappers issued a video threatening to kill him if Paris did not halt its intervention in Iraq in support of a US bombing campaign against Isil.
On Monday Fabius said he saw no legal obstacle to attacking the Isil in Syria even as he stressed France did not plan air strikes there.
“There is not, to our way of thinking, any legal impediment to responding to Islamic State attacks in Iraq as well as in Syria,” Fabius told reporters on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly.
France last week became the first foreign government to join the United States by conducting air strikes in Iraq against Isil.
At a think tank earlier in the day, Fabius stressed that his nation would not launch air strikes against Isil militants based in Syria despite having bombed a suspected target of the group in northern Iraq last week.
His stance on the legal question appeared at variance with the view expressed by French President Francois Hollande, who last week stressed that France had acted in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government but had no similar authority in Syria.
Isil has been blamed for a wave of sectarian violence, beheadings — including of two US citizens and one Briton — and massacres of civilians.
Fabius reiterated France’s position that it will continue to support the moderate opposition against Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, but that “the French president has said we do not have intention to do the same in Syria, I mean by air”. “I think it is possible to act. Therefore the question is not a question of legality, international legality. But, first, France cannot do everything. And second, we consider that to support the moderate opposition and to fight both [Al] Bashar and Daesh (Isil) is a necessity,” Fabius said.
France is the only western nation to have publicly admitted to arming Al Assad’s opponents, although it has limited deliveries once Isil gained territory.
Fabius said Iran, which is negotiating with western powers over its nuclear ambitions, could play some role against Isil rather than formally joining a coalition. He said the Iranian and French presidents could explore this in talks this week.
However, he stressed France wanted to keep the nuclear issue and the battle against Isil entirely separate.
“Because of their geographical position and what they say, and attitude towards Daesh, they can do something. Not in the coalition, in the narrow sense of this word, but more generally speaking,” Fabius said.
