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Visiting France, Kerry Vows ‘Greater Pressure’ on ISIS Cease-Fire and Political Transition in Syria Crucial to Defeating ISIS, Kerry Says
(about 2 hours later)
PARIS — Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that the United States and its allies must intensify their offensive against the Islamic State in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris, promising that the militant group “will feel greater pressure” in the coming weeks. PARIS — The United States, France and Russia must step up their coordination in striking the Islamic State in Syria after the Paris terrorist attacks, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday, but he insisted that cooperation cannot begin until there is a cease-fire and a political transition.
“Everybody understands that with Lebanon’s attacks, with what’s happened in Egypt, with Ankara, Turkey, and attacks in Paris, we have to step up our efforts to hit them at the core where they’re planning these things, and also obviously to do more on borders in terms of the movement of people,” Mr. Kerry said. Mr. Kerry expressed optimism that a shift in Syria could come within weeks now that the United States and more than a dozen other nations, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, have agreed to a framework to end the crisis there.
The secretary of state spoke after a meeting with President François Hollande of France in Paris, where he said they discussed “significant steps” to be “more effective” against the Islamic State. That will depend, he said, on the ability of Syrian opposition groups to organize and negotiate with the government of President Bashar al-Assad, and cooperation from Russia and Iran to ease the transition.
Mr. Kerry, who said the French leader would visit Washington next week to meet with President Obama, also spoke about ways of “increasing our efforts.” “Now, all we need is the beginning of the political process, and the cease-fire goes in place – that’s a gigantic step,” he said in an interview with reporters who were traveling with him..
“Over the course of the next weeks, Daesh will feel greater pressure,” Mr. Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “They are feeling it today. They felt it yesterday. They felt it in the past weeks. “ Mr. Kerry also met with President François Hollande of France on Tuesday to discuss how to intensify pressure against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or the Arabic acronym Daesh.
He said the United States-led coalition had gained territory against the group and killed important leaders. “If we can get that done, that opens up the aperture for a whole bunch of things,” Mr. Kerry said of a cease-fire in the four-year civil war. “So we’re weeks away, conceivably, from the possibility of a big transition for Syria.”
“There is a clear strategy in place, and step by step, I’m confident the momentum will pick up,” said Mr. Kerry, who made a hastily arranged trip here for official meetings and to show solidarity in the wake of the attacks. The more quickly the political changes occur, he added, “the faster the violence can taper down and we can isolate Daesh and al Nusra, and begin to do what our strategy has always set out to do.”
Before meeting with Mr. Hollande, Mr. Kerry went to the American Embassy in Paris, where he thanked staff members for their work, and where he said the United States had no choice but to wage war on the Islamic State, because its members were willing to die for their cause. Although American and Russian forces are sharing limited information in their military campaigns, they are not fully coordinating their efforts against the Islamic State. France is also hitting Islamic State targets in Syria.
“This is just raw terror to set up a caliphate,” he said. “This is not a situation where we have a choice.” United States officials fear that any information they shared with Moscow about American-supported opposition groups would be used by the Russians or Mr. Assad to target them.
“We’re not choosing to randomly go to war, we’re trying to avoid it, trying to find a better path,” Mr. Kerry said at the embassy. “If somebody is willing to die — if you want to go die on any given day unfortunately, you can take some people with you.” Once the political process is on track, Mr. Kerry said, the United States and Russia could begin to “cooperate on the broader scale, which we can’t do until we have some definition.”
Mr. Kerry also told embassy employees that the United States was “steadily” making progress in pushing back the Islamic State, though he conceded that gains were slow to come. Mr. Kerry’s diplomatic effort faces long odds in the multisided conflict in Syria, which has become a proxy war, and it was not clear whether his ambitious timetable is feasible.
“Jihadi John is gone,” Mr. Kerry said, appearing to confirm the death of the masked Islamic State militant Mohammed Emwazi, who was targeted last week in an American airstrike in Raqqa, Syria. “We’re slowly marshaling the forces and the capacity to be able to change this current dynamic.” Although the United States has said Mr. Assad must leave office as part of any solution to the conflict in Syria, he has the support of Russia and Iran, and Iran’s deputy foreign minister reiterated that point on Monday.
But Kerry said on Tuesday that it would be impossible to defeat the Islamic State without the departure of Mr. Assad.
“He’s complicit in the rise of Daesh, and therefore, as long as Assad is there, you cannot fully go get rid of this phenomenon,” Mr. Kerry said.
His comments came as he wrapped up a visit to Paris promising that Islamic State “will feel greater pressure” in the coming weeks in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris.
“Everybody understands that with Lebanon’s attacks, with what’s happened in Egypt, with Ankara, Turkey and attacks in Paris,” Mr. Kerry said, “we have to step up our efforts to hit them at the core where they’re planning these things, and also obviously to do more on borders in terms of the movement of people.”
Mr. Kerry said Mr. Hollande would visit Washington next week to meet with President Obama and discuss ways of “increasing our efforts.”
“Over the course of the next weeks, Daesh will feel greater pressure,” Mr. Kerry said.