In a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Hollande "gave his support to the idea ... of creating a buffer zone between Syria and Turkey to host and protect displaced people," the French presidency said in a statement, reported Agence France Presse.
ISIS militants are battling Kurdish militia in Kobane - a town in northern Syria that borders Turkey - and while air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS have helped push back the militants, pressure is mounting for more international action to save the town.
Some 200,000 mainly Kurdish refugees have fled the ISIS advance into the area, and Ankara in particular has come under pressure to act, although its response has been complicated by concerns over emboldening Kurdish separatists, who have waged a deadly insurgency in Turkey over the past decades.
Erdogan's proposal to establish the safe zone may however only be enforceable by deploying foreign troops on the ground, which coalition members such as France have so far ruled out.
According to the presidency statement, Hollande and Erdogan agreed that the moderate Syrian opposition fighting both ISIS and the regime of Bashar al-Assad should be "helped more."
alarabiya.net (With AFP)
8/10/14
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France backs idea of creating Syria buffer zone...
ReplyDeleteFrench President François Hollande has thrown his support behind a Turkish proposal to create a buffer zone on its border with Syria to protect displaced people, his office announced on Wednesday.
Hollande backed the idea following a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier in the day.
“(The president) insisted on the need to avoid massacres in the north of Syria. He gave his support to the idea proposed by President Erdogan to create a buffer zone between Syria and Turkey to host and protect displaced people,” read a statement from Hollande’s office.
It added that the two countries also agreed on the need to give more support to the moderate Syrian opposition to fight Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State group (IS), also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Later in the day, both the United States and Britain offered cautious support for the idea of a buffer zone, saying they were willing to “examine” the proposal............http://www.france24.com/en/20141008-france-hollande-buffer-zone-turkey-syria/
8/10/14