Tillerson visits the Middle East to ease new tension
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that the battle against the Islamic State (IS) is not over, urging other members of a coalition aimed at destroying the group to make sure militants do not emerge as a threat elsewhere in the world.
Speaking at a gathering in Kuwait of the 74-nation alliance fighting the jihadist group, Tillerson pledged an additional $200m for stabilising liberated parts of Syria and called on other countries to help out there and in Iraq. IS fighters were trying to find a haven far from Middle East battlefields, including in Afghanistan and the Philippines, he said.
“Without continued attention and support from coalition members we risk the return of extremist groups like IS in liberated areas in Iraq and Syria, and their spread in new locations,” Tillerson said.
The secretary is on a fivenation trip through the Middle East. He will look to ease new tensions around the Syria conflict and assuage allies angered by the Trump administration’s decision to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel.
Late yesterday, Tillerson attended a conference aimed at raising money for the reconstruction of Iraq. While the US is expected to announce a $3bn package through the ExportImport Bank, pledges so far have fallen well short of the nearly $100bn Iraq says it needs.
KURDISH FIGHTERS
As on past trips, Tillerson’s message has been complicated by President Donald Trump, who tweeted on Monday that it was time to invest at home after “so stupidly spending $7-trillion in the Middle East”.
Tillerson flew to Jordan late on Tuesday, where leaders are also anxious about a US decision to slash funding for the UN agency that assists Palestinian refugees.
Jordan hosts more than 2million Palestinian refugees, most of whom get help from the UN Relief and Works Agency.
After that, Tillerson heads to Lebanon and then Turkey to try to shore up a relationship that’s been increasingly strained by US support for Kurdish fighters in Syria.
Looming in the background is flaring tension between Iran and Israel. At the weekend, the Israeli military struck 12 targets in Syria, including four belonging to Iran, after saying that an Iranian drone penetrated its airspace. An Israeli fighter plane crashed in northern Israel after coming under fire from Syrian anti-aircraft missiles.
Tillerson’s trip will not include a stop in Israel.
On Monday, a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Michael Oren, said the US is “not in the game” when it comes to Syria and Israel is counting on Russia to keep the confrontation with Iran from spiralling into war.