AUSTRALIA has ruled out any further military deployment to the troubled Middle East despite the call from the United States for coalition forces to “intensify and accelerate” the fight against Islamic State.

Defence ministers from some of the 40 nations actively confronting ISIS in Iraq and or Syria will meet in Brussels this week (from February 8 onwards) to look at strategies to halt the jihadists’ advance, particularly into Libya.

No major military offensive is planned for Libya, at least until it has its own stable government that can authorise foreign fighters on their soil, but the US has called for an intensification of hostilities against ISIS to “curb their global ambitions”.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said while Australian defence chiefs were constantly reviewing its commitment to the war, the country was already the second largest contributor of troops on the ground in Iraq and the contribution had been recognised.

“The Iraqi government has not asked for an expansion of that contribution,” she said.

She said Secretary of State John Kerry’s call to intensify the fight was directed at countries with a more direct interest in Iraq and the region and the Australian Government had already made an assessment and decided its contribution with air strikes and ground forces was significant enough.

“There was a request for all nations — 40 nations in the coalition — to provide more troops and Australia considered that at the time and in the context of the contribution it was already making and fact that the coalition was very grateful and acknowledge the significance of the contribution and it remains as it is and we’ve not been asked since that time either by US or Iraq to (do more),” Ms Bishop said.

Australia has contributed to the more than 10,000 coalition air strikes on militant targets in the region.

Ms Bishop on Thursday defended Australia’s $25 million pledge to assist Syria and Iraq after other nations promised vastly bigger sums.

Ms Bishop told world leaders and delegations from 70 nations at a Syria donors’ conference in London that Australia would commit another $25 million on top of the $40 million she had offered the previous year.

She said the overall contribution was the nation’s largest ever, totalling $233 million since 2011. Australia would also contribute $400 million to the fight against ISIS this year and $830 million over four years to refugee resettlement.