Saudi Arabia will host a meeting with the United States, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Gulf Arab nations on Thursday on ways to counter the rise of the Islamic State.
The meeting in Jeddah will discuss “terrorism in the region and extremist organizations,” the official Saudi Press Agency reported on Tuesday. It coincides with a visit to the region by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
US President Barack Obama is expected to outline on Wednesday his strategy to counter the Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group that controls large areas in Iraq and Syria.
Iraq’s parliament on Monday approved a national unity government under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi tasked with facing the threat of the Islamic State.
The news was welcomed globally amid hopes that the new government will be able to coordinate responses to the extremist group with its international allies.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said the alliance is ready to consider requests from the new government to “assist Iraq in its efforts to build more effective security forces.”
“The formation of the government under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi represents a historic opportunity for Iraq’s people and their political leaders to overcome their ethnic and sectarian divides,” Rasmussen said.
The US and other Western powers hope that a broadly-based government will be able to build bridges to Iraq’s disaffected Sunni minority, from which the Islamic State draws its support.
At a NATO summit in Wales last week, the US and Britain forged a 10-member anti-Islamic State coalition.
Kerry is meant to land in Jordan and start talks there on Wednesday, following a visit this week by US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel to Turkey, the only Muslim member of the new coalition.
Britain, meanwhile, is sending heavy machine guns and ammunition worth 1.6 million pounds (2.6 million dollars) to Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said the shipment should arrive in Iraq on Wednesday.
“The Kurdish forces remain significantly less well equipped than ISIL (Islamic State) and we are responding to help them defend themselves, protect citizens and push back ISIL advances,” Fallon said.
The extremist group routed Iraqi security forces from much of Sunni Arab northern and western Iraq in a lightning offensive in June before pushing into Kurdish-controlled areas in August.
The Kurdish Peshmerga military have slowly been regaining ground in recent weeks with the aid of a US bombing campaign.
France, Iran and the US are reported to have already delivered arms to the Peshmerga, who say they are outgunned by Islamic State fighters armed with up-to-date US weaponry captured from retreating Iraqi forces.
GNA
