French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Thursday criticised the Iraqi government's failure to sufficiently integrate the Sunni and Kurdish communities in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group, and also ruled out sending any ground troops, Efe news agency reported.
"If we want to combat IS, there has to be a military and political action," Fabius said in a radio and television interview with RMC and BFM TV, noting that French fighters were involved in bombing the terrorist group in Iraq, though not in Syria.
France can help in the military aspects of the fight, he said, but argued that the political fight requires that the government further include Sunnis and Kurds, as their participation was currently "not enough."
Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi was in Paris to attend a meeting of the coalition members against IS, where he asked his partners specifically to help curb inflows of foreign fighters that join the ranks of the terrorist group from neighbouring countries.
After recalling that IS controls 300,000 sq km of territory in Syria and Iraq, the head of French diplomacy reiterated his country's position on Syria.
The solution, Fabius said, was a "unity government with elements of the regime and the opposition, but not (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad, who is responsible for the death of tens of thousands".
