Hollande meets Italian PM on ISIL before heading to Moscow

PARIS, Nov 26 (KUNA) -- French President Francois Hollande met here Thursday with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to discuss the situation after the November 13 terror attacks in Paris and to discuss cooperation in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other related issues.
Hollande's office said that the talks were part of a marathon round of diplomatic contacts carried out by the French leader to try to galvanize efforts against ISIL on a number of levels, military, infrastructure and financial resources, but also to explore a political solution to the Syrian conflict.
In a hectic round of shuttle diplomacy and contacts, Hollande is meeting world leadership to urge more cooperation and even a difficult coalition against the terrorist group in Syria and Iraq.
"Faced with Daesh (ISIL), we have to have a diplomatic strategy but equally a military one," the French President told the press after his meeting with Renzi. He already met Monday in Paris with British Premier David Cameron, and then he flew to Washington for a few hours to hold talks with US President Barack Obama.
On Wednesday night, he hosted talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and more meetings are planned for the remainder of the week.
"Later (today) I will go to Moscow," Hollande said in the press statement after meeting the Italian PM. "These meetings should allow us to learn lessons from what happened in Paris," he added.
Later in the week, Hollande is meeting the Chinese Canadian leadership and also Ban KI-Moon on Sunday.
The attacks here two weeks ago killed 130 people and wounded 350 others and have sparked Hollande's frenetic diplomacy to ensure there is a significant response to the terrorist atrocities.
Armed with a solid UN Security Council resolution that urges "all measures" to combat ISIL, he is desperately trying to bring together the diverse members of the world community who are engaged against ISIL, but who have different agendas.
Beyond the military and other punitive actions against ISIL, Hollande again stressed that a political solution was needed to end the Syrian conflict and once again maintained his opposition to any role for the Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad in the future make-up of Syria.
But he did not appear to make Al-Assad's departure a condition for starting the process, although he said the Syrian President must leave as part of this process.
"The political transition in Syria will lead to the departure of Bashar Al-Assad," Hollande declared on Thursday.
The French and Italian leaders also discussed the catastrophic problem of hundreds-of-thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting in Syria and in Iraq, not to mention the large number of refugees leaving Libya and West Africa, many of whom end up in Italy.
Both men discussed how to get a global agreement on this question, especially with Turkey which is a jump-off point to the European continent for many refugees from the Mideast region. (end) jk.hjb