AFP
Doha
The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) yesterday rejected claims a US-led coalition air campaign against the Islamic State (IS) group has failed following advances by it in Syria and Iraq.
Speaking in Doha, after a meeting between foreign ministers of the GCC and European Union, HE Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah, Qatar’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that military action alone was not enough.
“The coalition is not failing but the air campaign is not enough,” al-Attiyah, who led the GCC delegation at the meeting, told reporters.
“There are so many steps which we have to co-operate and co-ordinate together. To date the
campaign against terror is effective.
“One of them is to enhance and expedite the dialogue in Iraq, and in Syria it is to find a way out to save the Syrian people, because they have been put between the tyranny of the regime and the brutality of the terrorist,” he said.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, described the latest news from Syria and Iraq, “especially” the capture of Palmyra, as “dramatic”.
“Only a political solution, both in Syria and Iraq, can provide a settlement for the crisis,” she said.
Both sides said they would continue to have discussions on establishing a free trade area between the 28-member EU and the six-state GCC.
Mogherini said trade between the EU and GCC had been growing at an “incredible rate” and reached “150bn euros ($165bn) last year”.
