Paris said on Thursday it will maintain its participation in the coalition allegedly fighting ISIL Takfiri group in Syria.
“For now of course we remain in Syria,” France’s European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said on CNews television, adding “the fight against terrorism is not over.”
“It’s true that the coalition has made significant progress in Syria, but this fight continues, and we will continue it,” she said.
France has stationed fighter jets in Jordan and artillery along the Syrian border in Iraq as part of the US-led coalition, as well as an undisclosed number of special forces on the ground.
On Wednesday US President Donald Trump said in a Twitter video that “We’ve won against ISIS,” another acronym for the ISIL group, and that it was time to bring the roughly 2,000 US soldiers home.
It was a reversal of a US policy which had vowed its support for Kurdish allies who have been key militants against ISIL in Syria.
Meanwhile on Thursday, French Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Twitter Thursday that the group “has not been wiped of the map, nor have its roots.”
“We must definitively defeat the last pockets of this terrorist organization,” she said.
Source: AFP
