Paris: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday the United States is starting an operation with Turkey to finish securing the northern Syrian border, an area that IS militants have used as a lucrative smuggling route.
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Standing with Hollande at the Elysee Palace, Kerry said the deadly strikes in the French capital on Friday, along with recent attacks in Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey made it clear that more pressure must be brought to bear on the Islamic extremists.
Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday the United States would stand “shoulder-to-shoulder” with France in determination to defeat ISIL militants who claimed responsibility for gun and bomb attacks that killed 129 people in Paris. Upon his arrival, the U.S. embassy was lit in colors of the French flag to show solidarity with Paris. “So the faster Russian Federation and Iran give life to this process, the faster the violence can taper down and we can isolate Daesh (Islamic State) and al Nusra and begin to do what our strategy has always set out to do”.
When asked if terrorist attacks such as the ones in Paris on Friday were the new normal, Kerry said: “Absolutely not, no. This is not normal, it will not be normal and will not become normal”.
“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that”, Kerry said, noting there was “a sort of particularized focus” and “rationale” behind that attack. “It was to attack everything that we do stand for”.
“There was absolutely nothing legitimate or rational about the slaughter of 10 newspaper staff and two police officers in Paris earlier this year”, said Rep. Edward Royce, R-Calif, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The Secretary and Khoja agreed on the urgent need to end the suffering the Syrian people and see Syria emerge from the civil war whole, unified, pluralistic and led by a government free of Asad and responsive to the needs of the Syrian people.
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“France can not act alone in these theatres”, he said, at a meeting of European Union defense ministers in Brussels, according to reports.
