The US and Russia have united to condemn the Nice attack and to identify the war in Syria as the world’s principal “incubator” for terrorism as they discuss tightening coordination to handle the five-year crisis.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, began a meeting in Moscow with a moment of silence for the victims of the atrocity, with Kerry expressing “absolute abhorrence for the incredible carnage”.

Kerry said: “The problem is that you and I and other foreign ministers and leaders are now doing this almost on a weekly basis, and nowhere is there a greater hotbed or incubator for these terrorists than in Syria.

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“People all over the world are looking to us ... to find a faster and more tangible way of them feeling that everything that is possible is being done to end this terrorist scourge and to unite the world in the most comprehensive efforts possible to fight back against their nihilistic and depraved approach to life and death.”



The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, sent a message of condolence to France’s François Hollande, saying: “Russia knows what terror is and the threat it poses to all of us ... and we have sympathy for and solidarity with the French people. The crime in Nice was committed with particular cruelty and cynicism. We can only defeat terrorism with joint efforts.”

Washington and Moscow have been negotiating a plan to increase military and intelligence coordination in Syria to defeat Islamic State and the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, despite disagreements over the fate of Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and mounting concern among Syrian rebels that Assad will be strengthened in the name of fighting terrorism.

But a Moscow press conference was repeatedly delayed. Talks stopped in the early evening after six hours for a visit to sign the book of condolences at the French embassy.

The Nice attack was also condemned by religious and political leaders across the Muslim and Arab world as well as on Arabic-language and English social media. Egypt’s grand mufti lambasted “saboteurs who follow Satan (who will) be damned in this life and in the hereafter”.



Similar sentiments were expressed by the popular Saudi cleric Sheikh Salman al-Auda, who said the killer would be cursed by “God, his angels and all human beings”. Many comments on social media attacked Muslims. Saudi religious scholars also warned that the world should not be distracted from the war in Syria and what it called crimes by the “Syrian regime”.

Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s leading centre of learning, said that the “vile terrorist attack” contradicted Islam and called for “uniting efforts to defeat terrorism and rid the world of its evil”.



In Iran, the ministry of foreign affairs strongly condemned the “criminal terrorist attack”. Terrorism would be eradicated “only with international cooperation and consensus”, it said.

The Tunisian government said that the attacker, who police said held joint French-Tunisian citizenship, had committed an act of “extreme cowardice” and expressed solidarity with France against the “scourge of terrorism”.



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Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours issued a joint statement saying that they “strongly” condemned the “terrorist” act in Nice. “The Gulf Cooperation Council states stand in solidarity with the French republic following this cowardly criminal incident whose perpetrators have been stripped of all moral and human values,” said the bloc’s secretary general, Abdullatif al-Zayani.

The Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, condemned “in the strongest terms the vile terrorist attack”, his office said. The Arab League chief, Ahmed Abul Gheit, also denounced the “craven terrorist attack”.

Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said in a statement: “Israel strongly condemns the terrible terror attack. Israelis stand united with the French people. Israel is willing to help the French government fight this evil until it is defeated.”



The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, also wrote to Hollande, denouncing the “cowardly act in the strongest terms”.



The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said: “Terror has no religion, ethnic and nation. The perpetrators of this bloodthirsty attack have nothing to do with humanity. In fact, this barbaric have no place in this world.”



In Pakistan, the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, said the government and people of Pakistan were “deeply saddened” by the attack. “Being the frontline state in the war against terror, Pakistan itself has suffered immensely and has seen a series of tragedies,” he said. President Ghani of Afghanistan called the attack a “brutal and unforgivable crime, unjustifiable under any circumstances”.