Visit of Jean Yves Le Drian to Washington (13 and 14 November 2019)

Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, is visiting Washington from 13 to 14 November 2019.

During his visit, Jean-Yves Le Drian will take part in a ministerial meeting of the Global Coalition against Daesh; this meeting was requested by France following the developments in northeastern Syria over the last few weeks. Prior to this meeting, the minister will closely coordinate with our European partners taking part in the meeting.

The minister will reaffirm the importance for the Coalition to continue to mobilize the military and civilian resources needed to secure Daesh’s lasting defeat, while the most recent operations to retake territory held by this terrorist organization only ended in March 2019. The minister will underscore that any unilateral initiative that could undermine this achievement and the goal of securing Daesh’s lasting defeat must be avoided and that all members of the Coalition should closely coordinate their efforts in this respect.

Jean-Yves Le Drian will raise the key issue of the continued secure and long-term detention of Daesh fighters, which nothing should undermine, and the need to ensure that the crimes they committed in Iraq and Syria do not go unpunished. He will reaffirm the importance for the Global Coalition to continue its efforts to stabilize the territories liberated from Daesh, notably alongside Iraq, and France’s position with respect to the refusal to lend any support to the reconstruction of territory under the control of the Syrian regime or to the forced relocation of Syrian refugees.

The minister will also take part, together with several of his regional and international partners, in a meeting on the Syrian political process, the resumption of which is critical to finding a lasting solution to the crisis in Syria.
Lastly, the minister will meet with his American counterpart, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on the sidelines of this meeting of the Global Coalition, in order to discuss the priorities for French-American bilateral relations.