12:15 p.m. – President Barack Obama lauded the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom Friday, saying the two countries working together helps “make the world safer.”
“The alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom is one of the strongest and oldest the world has ever know,” Obama said at a London news conference alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron.
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Obama huddled with one of his closest global allies in London on Friday, hoping to plot an intensification in the war on ISIS as an internal political debate splits his host’s nation.
Obama’s talks with Cameron come as the United Kingdom faces a looming referendum on leaving in the European Union, a prospect so worrisome to the United States it spurred the President to take the unusual step of weighing in on a foreign country’s internal debates.
Obama wrote in The Telegraph newspaper ahead of his arrival, “Now is a time for friends and allies to stick together,” encouraging the nation to reject a separation from the EU to avoid an economic crisis.
That’s the same message he was expected to deliver as he sat for talks with Cameron on Friday afternoon. Cameron is leading the effort to keep the U.K. in the European bloc, but is facing an uphill challenge as polls show a divided nation.
The leaders were planning to take questions from reporters after their meeting.
“I am confident that Britain and the US can continue to build on a solid basis of friendship and a shared commitment to freedom, democracy and enterprise to shape a better world for future generations,” Cameron said before his talks with Obama.
Ahead of the sit-down, U.S. and British officials said the threat from ISIS was set to dominate the bilateral session. Obama is hoping to extract greater commitments from European and regional allies to go after the terror group while stabilizing the region through increased financial aid.
The two leaders also hoped to plot an effective plan to retake Mosul, in northern Iraq, where ISIS has been in control for almost two years. The U.S. has been working to develop the Iraqi military with the goal of liberating the city, but political concerns in Iraq’s central government have led to questions about the effectiveness of the fighting forces.
Also on the leaders’ agenda: the ongoing crisis in Libya, where a political power vacuum has led to an inflow of ISIS fighters, and Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, where multiple rounds of sanctions has done little to alter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions.
London is Obama’s second stop on a global tour with those goals in mind; he departed Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday confident in new commitments from assembled Arab Gulf nations to help rebuild areas of Iraq.
Like in Saudi Arabia, Obama will have to deal with some uncomfortable conversations. He’ll need to explain to his British hosts why he scoffed at “free riders” in a recent Atlantic magazine interview that included the United Kingdom and France. In the article, Obama said Cameron had become distracted by other issues during an air campaign in Libya, leaving the United States to lead while the U.K. played a more supporting role.
Ahead of Obama’s trip, White House officials insisted that other countries must pull their weight if they hope to defeat ISIS. In Europe, Obama will stress the need to develop effective counter-terror measures to stymie the types of ISIS-linked attacks that have rocked European capitals in the last year.
That includes better tracking of suspected militants coming into Europe and more effective sharing of information between intelligence agencies and among countries. Teams of intelligence and transportation experts were dispatched to Europe after terror attacks in Paris and Brussels.
Obama will reiterate his bid for greater cooperation during a visit to Germany on Sunday, where he’ll meet with European allies, including Cameron, along with Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and French President Francois Hollande.