Defense Ministers of Seven Main Countries in Anti-ISIS Coalition to Meet

The defense ministers of seven countries that play a major role in air operations and actions against the Islamic State group will gather on Wednesday, January 30, hosted by the United States and France in Paris. Ash Carter and Jean-Yves Le Drian, the defense ministers of the U.S. and France, will jointly host the meeting with their counterparts from the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. These seven countries play a key role in both airstrikes and operations as well as training and equipping Iraqi forces in battles against the so-called Islamic State group. This meeting comes as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is set to meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Geneva on the same day. Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has been conducting a military campaign in support of him since September. Western countries are calling for Assad's ultimate departure from power and have warned in recent months about Russian airstrikes against non-extremist rebels in Syria. According to the French government, the meeting on Wednesday aims to 'summarize' actions taken since 2014 and ways to enhance them. A French Ministry of Defense official told the news agency that the parties will discuss what is needed to intensify the campaign. The group known as the Islamic State, which occupied large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and 2015, has currently retreated from some of those areas. On the other hand, the commander of French military operations recently stated that the coalition's strategy has difficulties in achieving immediate results. The French government says that the parties will also discuss increasing the capacities of local forces - the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga. Australia, the U.S., and France have currently trained nearly 15,000 Iraqi soldiers; reports indicate they have been able to enhance their defensive capabilities against ISIS's explosive and suicide attacks. The defense ministers of the seven countries are also expected to discuss the fragile and critical situation in Libya.