Germany Promises Further Assistance to France in Fight Against Terrorism

It still has no plans to join France, the United States and Russian Federation in conducting air strikes in Syria.

The government had agreed on “difficult but correct and necessary steps”, said von der Leyen at a press conference in the Reichstag building, flanked by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Apart from Tornadoes, Germany is also contemplating to send a frigate and refueling planes as part of the mission, coalition sources were quoted by the website as saying.

“Germany will be a more active contributor than it has been until now”, German MP Henning Otte said, according to BBC reports.

France expanded its airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State (ISIL) jihadist group after the extremists claimed responsibility for a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, which killed 130 people.

The enormous inflow of migrants to Europe as well as the fight against terrorism are on the menu, by declaring Wednesday it’d send 650 soldiers to Mali to supply some relief to French forces and Germany set out its objectives.

Hollande will also be meeting with this weekend with Xi Jinping, the president of China, the fifth member of the UN Security Council the French President will have met this week.

Speaking in France after meeting President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said it is Germany’s “duty to reflect” and to “act quickly”.

Germany has felt the brunt of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing from the violence in the Middle East. Merkel has come under criticism from political allies in the past for her accommodative stance on refugees from the Middle East.

As police armed with automatic weapons stood guard, schools and some subway stations in the Belgian capital reopened Wednesday for the first time since emergency measures were imposed four days ago in the wake of the Paris attacks.

Hollande and Merkel said they hoped tensions would calm between Russia and Turkey – two potential components of the anti-IS alliance – which fell out over the downing of a Russian warplane at the Turkish-Syrian border.

Renzi offered only vague support for “a coalition of greater and greater strength that is up to the task of. the destruction of Daesh”, using another name for IS.

“There are risks. It is a unsafe operation, no doubt”.

“Knowing the rules that exist in Germany in terms of external intervention, if Germany can go further, it would be a very good signal in the fight against terrorism”, Mr Hollande told reporters yesterday before talks with Dr Merkel over dinner.