France said on Wednesday it wanted the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and regional countries, including Arab states and Iran, to coordinate action against the militant group Islamic State, the insurgents who control parts of Iraq and Syria.
"In our minds and we hope that it will be possible ... we want not only all the regional countries, including Arab states and Iran, but the five members of the Security Council, also to join this action,'' Foreign Minister Faurent Fabius told lawmakers.
Earlier Wednesday, French President Francois Hollande called for an international conference to discuss IS.
Hollande told the Le Monde newspaper Wednesday there needs to be a "global strategy" to address the group he called well-structured, well-financed and armed with sophisticated weapons.
"We have to see with different partners how we can face them in terms of intelligence and military dispositions. That means cutting resources, it means taking social action to separate the support this group has from the population,'' Fabius said.
The threat posed by the Islamic extremists to the international community is "the most serious since 2001," Hollande said. He did not say when the meeting would take place or who would be invited.
"We can no longer keep to the traditional debate of intervention or non-intervention," Hollande said, according to Reuters news agency.
France has contributed weapons to help Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq.
The United States has been carrying out airstrikes against the militants, including operations Tuesday that backed Iraqi and Kurdish forces as they pushed toward the northern city of Tikrit.
The Iraqi government, whose forces buckled under a recent extremist offensive, has made the recapture of Tikrit a priority.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters
