Arab governments to jointly act against IS, Jordan stays out

Cairo: Arab foreign ministers agreed on Sunday to jointly act against extremist groups, particularly the Islamic State (IS), but did not state their possible coordination with the US, a media report said. [caption id=“attachment_1700667” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image of IS. Reuters[/caption] At a meeting in Cairo on Sunday, the ministers agreed to cooperate to deny the extremist group any sort of access to financial support or political concessions, Xinhua reported. They also called on Arab states that are not yet members of “The Arab Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism” to join the effort as quickly as possible, calling for national and regional strategies against terrorism. Reports prior to the meeting said that the Arab states would agree to coordinate with the US in containing the IS, which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq. But the meeting fell short of clearly adopting any stance in such cooperation. Meanwhile, Jordan on Sunday said it’s not part of any coalition of battling the IS. Jordan’s Minister of State for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani said Jordan will continue to coordinate with all countries on how to face terrorism and terrorist organisations. Earlier on Saturday, the US said it was building a coalition to battle the threat from the extremist group Islamic State. Speaking at the NATO summit in Wales, US President Barack Obama said a “core coalition” is formed to tackle the IS threat, and Washington would destroy the group, just as it had gone after Al Qaeda. IANS