France pledges support to stabilize Iraq
BAGHDAD: France will help reconstruction and reconciliation efforts in Iraq as it emerges from the war against Daesh, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Saturday after talks with Iraqi officials in Baghdad.
France is a main partner in the US-led coalition helping Baghdad fight the militants who seized parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The coalition provided key air and ground support to Iraqi forces in the ninemonth campaign to take back Mosul.
The city’s fall in July effectively marked the end of the “caliphate” declared by Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi over parts of Iraq and Syria. Iraqi forces were close to taking back full control of Daesh’s northwestern stronghold of Tal Afar on Saturday.
“We are present in the war and we will be present in the peace,” Le Drian told a news conference in Baghdad with French Defense Minister Florence Parly and Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari.
“Even if our joint combat against Daesh is not finished, it is entering a phase of stabilization, of reconciliation, of reconstruction, a phase of peace,” Le Drian said.
France will give a loan of €430 million ($513 million) loan to Iraq before the end of the year, a French diplomatic source said.
The French ministers also met Iraqi Kurdish leaders in Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, whose Peshmerga fighters have played a prominent role in the fight against Daesh.
France and other western countries are worried that the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) plan to hold an independence referendum next month could ignite fresh conflict with Baghdad and neighboring states with sizeable Kurdish communities, mainly Iran and Turkey.
A diplomat familiar with French policy said Le Drian and Parly planned to convey to KRG President Massoud Barzani the French position in favor of an autonomous Kurdistan that remains part of the Iraqi state.
The French ministers and Jaafari did not mention the fate of families of French citizens who fought with Daesh, found in Mosul and other areas taken back from the terrorists.