Paris: The United States met on Friday with its top Sunni state allies in the Mideast to consider how to confront the region's growing turmoil that has been spawned by a Sunni Muslim insurgency group.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant reaches beyond the two countries, Iraq and Syria where it is currently based.
"The move of ISIL concerns every single country here," Kerry said at the start of the meeting held at the US ambassador's residence in Paris.
He said the talks with foreign ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also would touch on a "number of critical issues" including negotiations about Iran's nuclear program and the stalled peace effort between Israel and Palestinian authorities.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal called the discussions "of immense importance for our countries."
"I think with the cooperation between these countries we can affect, hopefully, the situation in a better way," al-Faisal said.
Kerry also met earlier today with the Sunni former prime minister of Lebanon.
The Obama administration hopes that Iraq's Sunni neighbors notably Jordan and Saudi Arabia will use their cross-border tribal networks to bolster the security militias with financing or weapons.
But it's not clear that Washington would even support that privately. The US probably would want to vet the tribes before they received any money or arms, even from other nations, to ensure that the aid does not get passed along to ISIL or other extremist groups.
Two other Sunni states in the Mideast, Qatar and Kuwait, were not present at today's meeting. The US Treasury Department believes money is being raised in Kuwait and Qatar for ISIL as well al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, the Nusra
Front. The US State Department says there is no evidence of Gulf governments themselves funding ISIL.
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