French President Francois Hollande has suggested for the first time that Paris could arm Syrian rebels in a "controlled framework," given that they were now caught between the Syrian government on one side and radical Islamists on the other, reports Reuters.
Noting that Russia was supplying arms to the Syrian government, Hollande, speaking in Mali, said France could provide arms to rebels, "but we will do it in a broader context with a number of countries and in a framework that can be controlled because we cannot accept that weapons could fall into the hands of jihadists that we have fought against here."
Hollande spoke at a news conference in Bamako where he was attending a ceremony to mark the swearing-in of the country's new president.
France, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's fiercest critics, has until now held back from arming the rebels despite the lifting of a European Union arms embargo in June, fearing that weapons could get into the Islamist hands.
Read more of this report from Reuters.