MOSUL: French President Emmanuel Macron (center) is welcomed upon his arrival at the Al-Nuri Mosque in Iraq's second city of Mosul yesterday.-AFP

MOSUL, Iraq: France and Britain will today urge the United Nations to work for the creation of a "safe zone" in the Afghan capital Kabul to protect humanitarian operations, French President Emmanuel Macron said. "This is very important. This would provide a framework for the United Nations to act in an emergency," Macron said in comments published in the weekly Journal du Dimanche.

Above all such a safe zone would allow the international community "to maintain pressure on the Taleban," who are now in power in Afghanistan, the French leader added. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council-France, Britain, the US, Russia and China-will meet today to discuss the Afghanistan situation.

Macron yesterday visited the Islamic State jihadist group's former Iraqi stronghold Mosul, a day after vowing to keep troops in the country. In a speech at the devastated city's Church of Our Lady of the Hour, which the UN's cultural agency UNESCO is working to restore, Macron urged Iraq's religious communities to "work together" to rebuild the country.

"We will bring back a (French) consulate and schools," he pledged, while criticizing the pace of reconstruction in Mosul, where IS fought its last urban battle, as "too slow". The mainly Sunni Muslim city was recaptured from IS in 2017 after three years. Only 30-40 percent of its health facilities have so far been restored, according to a local official. Macron made the commitment for France to stay put in Iraq during a regional summit in Baghdad largely devoted to the fight against terrorism and the impact of the Taleban's takeover of Afghanistan as the US withdraws.

"No matter what choices the Americans make, we will maintain our presence in Iraq to fight against terrorism," he told a news conference on Saturday. His visit to Mosul, a melting pot of Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious communities, symbolized France's support for Christians in the Middle East. Before the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq had a sizeable minority of 1.5 million Christians, but it has whittled down to 400,000 out of a total population of some 40 million after waves of emigration in the face of conflict and persecution.

France, which finances French-speaking Christian schools in the region, aims to highlight the plight of Christians in the Middle East, as well as other minorities. "This message is civilizational but also geopolitical. There will be no balance in Iraq if there is no respect for these communities," the French president said ahead of his visit. Macron also made a stop at the site of Mosul's Al-Nuri mosque, where IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi had declared the establishment of a "caliphate" in 2014. IS blew up the famed 12th century mosque in June 2017 as Iraqi forces closed in on the jihadists in Mosul's Old City.

UNESCO is now organizing a vast project to rebuild it almost identically, with its famed leaning minaret. The mosque and church are part of three reconstruction projects led by UNESCO and funded by the United Arab Emirates to the tune of $50 million. The initiative, called "Reviving the Spirit of Mosul", the largest in the organization's history, includes plans to rebuild Ottoman-style heritage houses as part of a European-funded project. The French president on Friday visited the Shiite Muslim shrine of Imam Musa Al-Kadhim in the north Baghdad district of Kadhimiya, accompanied by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi. It was the first such visit for a French president. - AFP