Despite a reported surge in foreign fighters joining Isis, Prime Minister John Key said the number of New Zealanders involved remained at about five or six. Photo / File
Despite a reported surge in foreign fighters joining Isis, Prime Minister John Key said the number of New Zealanders involved remained at about five or six. Photo / File
NZ expects no new demands of allies but joins softer stand on Assad holding power.
Prime Minister John Key does not expect United States President Barack Obama to ask for new commitments from other leaders in New York this week for the fight against Isis.
Mr Key will attend Mr Obama's summit on countering Isis (Islamic State) early tomorrow morning New Zealand time. He expectsabout 30 other leaders to attend from countries that are part of the coalition led by the US in Iraq and Syria.
New Zealand has about 145 troops in Iraq, mostly at the US military's Taji base training Iraqi soldiers.
Mr Key said the summit would be a stocktake of progress. "I don't think it's a meeting where they're going to be asking for new commitments but it is an opportunity to talk about how we're going, some of the issues in a quite practical way and how we can deal with those," he said.
Despite a reported surge in foreign fighters joining Isis, Mr Key said the number of New Zealanders involved remained at about five or six.
He refrained from criticising Russian President Vladimir Putin for fighting Isis by providing support to Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria rather than lining up alongside other international forces.
"It's going to take a whole lot of different countries with a range of both capabilities and influence to get a long-term solution in Syria."
However, he said it was clear Russia and the US should work together to resolve the issue and a meeting early this morning between Mr Obama and Mr Putin was critical.
"There are times when leaders have to lead and let's hope when it comes to Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, they can find a way through this which will be acceptable to everybody."
He believed any long-term solution required both Isis and Mr Assad to go, in order to allow refugees to return to their homeland. However, he said New Zealand's position on Mr Assad was similar to the new softer stance shown by the US and Australia in the past week.
Having previously called for Mr Assad to be removed, Secretary of State John Kerry said the US was now open to his staying on in the short term. That was followed by Australia's Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, who said a leadership vacuum in Syria could worsen the situation.
The US has also called on Mr Putin to use his influence with Mr Assad to get him into talks.
Mr Key said Russia's support of the Assad regime took "a different perspective" from most other nations.
