Pressure mounts on Syria talks

Multiple bloody attacks in Paris claimed by Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists hiked pressure on world leaders meeting in Vienna Saturday to overcome deep divisions and find a way out of Syria’s war.

Some 20 delegations gathered for a second round of talks on Syria’s nearly five-year conflict that has left 250,000 dead, sparked a refugee crisis in Europe and birthed the ISIS group that has terrorised many nations at the table.

Paris became the latest victim of the snowball effect of Syria’s conflict with a series of attacks Friday night that left almost 130 people dead at the hands of gunmen who blamed their actions on French military action in Syria.

Vowing France would not stop its “international action”, foreign minister Laurent Fabius said in Vienna that the killings underlined the need to “increase the international coordination in the struggle against Daesh (ISIS).”

He said France had ordered security stepped up at embassies and official buildings around the world as he rushed back to his traumatised country after only a few hours in Vienna.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov agreed, saying that the attacks were “no justification” to ease up on tackling radical jihadists such as the ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front, affiliated to Al Qaeda.

And US secretary of state John Kerry said that the attacks will “stiffen our resolve, all of us, to fight back.”“If they’ve done anything they’ve encouraged us today to do even harder work to make progress and to help resolve the crises that we face,” he said.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that the bloodbath added “another kind of meaning” to the gathering.