see. to that end, yesterday our widely attended pledging conference raised more than $2 billion in new funds, in order to meet the humanitarian and stabilization needs which are immediate needs. as we have moved faster than some people anticipated to take back fallujah, take back ramadi and tikrit, the ability to deliver service to people who want to come home and have come home, beginning with tikrit where more than 100,000 iraqis have returned and living in their homes again and they've secured their land. that requires stabilization and support which comes both in form of people in support as well as equipment to support and funding for various initiatives. so the coalition is now

determined to do what is necessary to defeat daesh in syria where the group has been weakened but still we know remains entrenched in raqqah. and tonight the coalition partners have carried out more than 4,000 air strikes in an effort that has clearly now going to benefit by the decision of four additional coalition member to join the arab campaign. now, we know, as i said earlier in my opening comments to all of the ministers, that defeating daesh is a challenge. we know that. we're making progress but we want to make more and we want to do it faster. we also know that getting at it in its core areas is obviously a challenge. and we're going to prepare carefully and we're going to proceed relentlessly. but i'm confident that we are going to succeed.

and we're going to -- what i mean be that, we're going to deprive daesh of its geographical base and we're going to strike a heavy blow against that organization in those two areas where it had most secured territory and from which it was announcing its caliphate. but daesh will still remain dangerous even when that defeat takes place. and the reason is they have dispersed people over the course of a number of years to various countries. and as we were reminded today by the participants of this coalition, in fact we were reminded by the foreign minister of iraq himself who said people have come to iraq for more than 100 countries. attracted by the initial narrative that daesh was pushing through the social media. so even as it is losing ground in the middle east, we know already that they're going to try to transform themselves into global terrorists organization,

network capable of orchestrating attacks as we have seen in various places. and that is also going to take time and is hard work. countering this network plan, this global networking was the subject of the afternoon's discussion today. the major focus among coalition members. and we talked about the importance of real time communication between countries, information sharing so that our police and our border guards and airport security officials know when they are coming into contact with suspected terrorists. so they know if in one country or another someone is visiting who had been to iraq, that depends on the flow of information and coordination between the coalition members. we talked about efforts that are already under way to counter daesh's messaging on the social media, efforts that are now showing significant signs of

progress, particularly with the entry of many of the muslim nations, arab and otherwise who are opening up their own communication channels, which are the most effective of all. sometimes people who have defected are coming on and telling people and sharing with people. mist tholg of dash, the lies that are told and that has a profound impact in helping to encounter the recruitment and change the overall narrative. we talked about the need to create opportunity in areas of the world where populations are most susceptible to terrorists recruitment. and we also acknowledged that radicalization can result from any number of specific causes. there's no one thing that is always the instigator of particular recruitment

initiative. and obviously some of these recruitment efforts are quite unique to the individuals who are involved, as we learn more and more about their lives and about their mental state at a particular moment. finally, we agreed on the importance of conveying a very simple but compelling message that we hope to spread everywhere that people will understand and heed. and that message is that terrorism of the type that we have seen committed by daesh, by acomp polices results in death and destruction. it doesn't advance a particular cause. most people in the world couldn't tell you what the cause is. except an explosion of anger and hate that results in the death that i described.

nothing that they do is going to lead us to abandon our principles, our beliefs because they don't offer an alternative. it's not going to prompt us to change the way that we organize our societies and it's not going to lessen our commitment to human rights, it's going to strengthen it, including women's rights and the commitment to the rule of law. it is not going to drive us from public places, not going to drive us from restaurants or sports arenas, from our houses of worship or celebrations of cultural and national pride. people around the world who are listening to daesh propaganda should know beyond a scintilla of doubt that when a story of our era is written the world is going to look back and say that daesh made zero difference beyond the cruel suffering that it caused and that every single person who committed murder or suicide at its direction did so

shamefully and in vain. so i think the message coming out of today's meeting is clear, the counterdaesh coalition is going to go forward from washington today united, more determined with a clear sense of its mission and its strategy. and we're going to press on vigorously with our partners in that endeavor, our partners in iraq and syria and in other countries, in libya. we also met and talked at length about libya and our commit tomt the government of national accord and our efforts to fight daesh there also. and we are going to be steadily intensifying our efforts until this terrorist occupation of whatever territory it holds today has ended. and we're going to be working with friends across the globe with increasing strategies and increasing commitment and increasing savvy to root out the

terrorists networks and to find new and innovative ways ourselves to enhance our communications, to disrupt the enemy and to safeguard the lives of our citizens. that's what today's meeting was about and it's one of the best meetings that i've attended during the time that i've been secretary of state and i think it will be productive and that will be measured obviously in the results on the ground. so with that i'm happy to take a few questions. >> we've got time for a few. the first one will come from nick from bloomberg. >> mr. secretary, thank you. you just talked about unity in the counter isil coalition and given that nato is sort of the beating heart of this coalition, could you respond to donald trump's remarks about nato unity and his suggestion of a potential financial quid pro quo in the u.s. meeting or not

meeting its treaty obligations under nato? thank you. >> well, look, i've said this bf and i need to say it again. i am not going to get into the presidential race. i'm not allowed under the law to become engaged candidate for candidate, pro or con. i'm not in politics. so let me just restate american policy with regard to nato, because i want nato to be clear where we stand. this administration, like every single administration, republican and democrat alike since 1949, remains fully committed to the nato alliance and to our security commitments under article 5, which is absolutely bedrock to our membership and partnership in nato. i might point out, every nato country is a member of the

coalition against daesh, and 20 of the 28 nations were here today. so that's how important nato is and the work we are doing, and in coordination with our allies, we made it clear in warsaw just a few, what, week or so ago at the summit that we are going to increase capability, the readiness, and the responsiveness of nato forces to address any threat and to deter further destabilizing activities that occur, and the nato is as unified as it's been. people are plussing up the amount of money that they are contributing. and we are, ourselves, strengthening our presence in the forward lines, and i think everybody believes that that is making a difference to the security of our country. >> next question comes from pierre garnam.

>> thank you. it is obvious that the next step would be raqqah, also mosul. how confident is this campaign and the presence of the regime activity absence of any transition in syria, how hopeful are you to come into terms with russia on what's happening in syria? >> well, hopeful is the right word. i can't say that i'm confident, because there are very tough issues that are being resolved, but i do reiterate what i said in moscow. we made progress in moscow, and in the last couple of days, as our teams have been working to do the homework that we said that we'd do coming out of moscow, it has been constructive. so, we're going steadily and carefully down a road without making promises to people in public that we can't keep,

because i think people are already frustrated enough by what has been happening in syria. so we're going to go methodically. there is a possibility if everybody does what they have said they are prepared to do, that this could change what is happening in syria. so that's our goal. i'm hopeful we can get there, and we're going to do everything in our power to work in good faith in order to try to do so, but nothing that we've done are or doing in this process is based on trusting the word of somebody. it's based on our ability to work out a series of measurable steps that each party would take in order to make this work. and the proof, as i said, will be not in the words, but in the final product, if there is one. >> final question today comes from dave clarke at afp. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. how does the turmoil in

neighboring turkey affect the plans that you're making in the counter-isil coalition? also the trouble in libya and yemen. there are other areas beyond syria and iraq which are going through political crises at the moment. are you able to coordinate operations against isis in those areas, and given the role that iran plays, both in syria and in iraq supporting local forces, have you also been able to engage with mr. zarif on these issues just as you have with mr. putin last week? and since i'm asking about iran, do you have anything you can tell us about reports a u.s. citizen was arrested on july the 17th, i believe, a certain family is very worried. thank you, sir. >> i didn't hear the last part of that. asked about a u.s. citizen july 17th?

well, i'll answer that very quickly. no, i can't say anything about that at this point in time. with respect to the series of questions you asked about turkey, libya, yemen, and can we coordinate, et cetera, let me be very specific, because it's very important. he sent a deputy, who made a very strong statement to the effect that turkey will not be affected by the events that happened in terms of its commitment to a counter daesh effort, that turkey is going to continue to be a working and full partner and member with the the counterdaesh coalition and they don't see any interruption whatsoever as a consequence of what has happened, and that is directly from the turkish

minister, who came here today in order to take part in these meetings. now, we are -- we have had a series of meetings in the last few days. i think we -- in brussels, we discussed the coordination with respect to yemen and libya and syria, and iraq. we also talked about ukraine, where we have another challenge that we're working on. in brussels, after brussels, we talked in london over two days in several meetings with key participants in this initiative. and in these initiatives. and then i met with the deputy crown prince of saudi arabia and the foreign minister to talk about yemen and a way forward. we met also with the egyptians and yemeratis about libya, and i think in both places we were

able to chart out specific steps that we hope to be able to take in the next days that can strengthen the government of national accord in libya and begin to focus further on daesh's presence in libya. and we have some very specific agreements on what we're going to do to try to move that forward. likewise on yemen, the kuwait talks are resuming. we are pressing for steps to be taken to avoid the skirmishes on the border of skraib and yemen and steps to be specifically taken that could lay out a sequencing of the provisions that are current ly stalemated within the talks in order to break that stalemate and try to move forward with some sense of urgency. so all of these issues are really being worked on in all of

these meetings simultaneously, including i might add in russia, i spent not only a fair amount of time or most amount of time on syria, but we talked about ukraine and the responsibilities of both parties to try to resolve and move forward to make progress on the minutes k agreement and we're going to be talking with our counterparts, i think, almost every day in the next days to try to advance that process, which is a major priority of president obamas that he wants to try to see some progress on very, very soon. so the answer to your question, these meetings, these gatherings, gives us an opportunity on the side of those meetings to also make sure we're

working together in the most cooperative way with the most state of the art options to resolve these other crises. they are all interconnected in their own way and we understand that, even though they have very unique characteristics in each place with different sets of players and different contingencies between those players, there still is a connection of the dots with respect to daesh, or al qaeda in the case of yemen, and the challenge of bringing complicated sectarian divisions together in a way that finds a solution. and i think we made at least conceptually some progress and now we need to implement what we gre agreed on. >> thank you, everybody, that concludes today's press conference. >> thank you all very much. appreciate it. thanks.

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