Turkey – […] Kerry has been touring the Middle East to build support for President Barack Obama’s plan, announced on Wednesday, to strike both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi frontier to defeat Islamic State Sunni fighters, who control swathes of both countries.
On Thursday, Kerry won backing for a “coordinated military campaign” against Islamic State from 10 Arab countries – Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and six Gulf states including rich rivals Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

But it remains far from clear what role individual nations will play and while he confirmed France’s commitment to use military force in Iraq, Kerry declined to say whether France would join a similar campaign in Syria.
That follows conflicting reports in key ally Britain over its potential role, with Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday saying he has not ruled out military action in Syria after his foreign secretary said Britain would not take part in any air strikes there.
“It is entirely premature and frankly inappropriate at this point in time to start laying out one country by one country what individual nations are going to do,” Kerry, who travels to Cairo on Saturday, told reporters, adding building a coalition would take time.

“I’m comfortable that this will be a broad-based coalition with Arab nations, European nations, the United States, others,” he said. “At the appropriate time, every role will be laid out in detail.”
Turkey, which has the second largest armed forces in the NATO military alliance after the United States and hosts a major U.S. Air Force base at Incirlik in its south, has so far conspicuously avoided committing to any military campaign.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who did not join the news conference with Kerry, said in a live interview on Turkish television hours after their meeting that U.S. action in Iraq would not be enough on its own to bring political stability.
“It is necessary, but it is not enough to establish order,” he told the Kanal 24 TV station.
U.S. officials played down hopes of persuading Ankara to take a significant role in any military involvement, saying Friday’s talks were focused on issues including Turkey’s efforts to stem the flow of foreign fighters crossing its territory and its role in providing humanitarian assistance.
“The Turks have played an extraordinary role on humanitarian aspects of the situation … and they are going to play and have been playing a pivotal role in our efforts to crack down on foreign fighter facilitation and counter terrorist finance,” a senior U.S. State Department official said. (read more)