Obama, Australian PM discuss ramping up pressure on Islamic State

The two leaders spoke to reporters after a bilateral meeting ahead of an Asia-Pacific summit in the Philippines

MANILA: US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that he discussed with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull the need to ramp up pressure on Islamic State and the need for claimants to areas of the South China Sea to settle their disputes peacefully.

The two leaders were speaking to reporters after a bilateral meeting ahead of an Asia-Pacific summit in Manila, the Philippines, which gets under way on Wednesday.



Turnbull, describing last week's deadly militant attacks in Paris as a "sobering reminder of the terrorism threat to all countries, said Australia would stand shoulder to shoulder with Washington and other allies in the fight against Islamic State.

Islamic State on Saturday claimed a series of coordinated attacks by suicide bombers and gunmen in Paris that killed at least 128 people at a concert hall, restaurants and the national sports stadium.

French President Francois Hollande also blamed the extremist group and called the coordinated assault on Friday night at six different sites an “act of war”.

The Paris area reeled Friday night from a shooting rampage, explosions and mass hostage-taking that President François Hollande called an unprecedented terrorist attack on France. His government announced sharply increased border controls and heightened police powers as it mobilised the military in a national emergency.

French television and news services quoted the police as saying that around 100 people had been killed at a concert site where hostages had been held during a two-hour standoff with the police, and that perhaps dozens of others had been killed in apparently coordinated attacks outside the country’s main sports stadium and four or five other popular locations in the city. But estimates on the total number of dead varied.