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France Plans Arms Shipments to Kurdish Forces in Iraq France Plans to Ship Arms to Embattled Kurdish Forces in Iraq
(about 14 hours later)
PARIS — Breaking ranks with other European countries, France announced on Wednesday that it would send arms to the embattled Kurdish authorities fighting Sunni militants who have encircled members of the Yazidi religious minority on a remote mountaintop in northern Iraq. PARIS — European nations moved on Wednesday to intensify their involvement in Iraq, announcing further humanitarian aid and, for the first time, pledging to supply arms to the embattled Kurdish forces fighting the Sunni militants who have overrun much of northern Iraq.
“In order to respond to the urgent needs expressed by the Kurdistan regional authorities, the president has decided, in agreement with Baghdad, to deliver arms in the coming hours,” President François Hollande said in a statement from his office. The shift is an important one for Europe, where the legacy of the first Iraq war remains divisive, but several factors in the current conflict are steadily tilting nations here toward deeper engagement now that President Obama has begun sending military advisers for the first time since American troops left in 2011.
The population of Iraqi Kurdistan was facing a “catastrophic situation,” the statement said, but it did not go into precise detail about the nature of the weaponry to be delivered. Analysts said that the images of dusty families sleeping in the open on a barren, rocky mountain had put pressure on officials to take action, despite what for many here remains the toxic legacy of the American-led invasion of 2003.
Kurdish pesh merga fighters are facing militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, who have shown off an array of captured weaponry, including tanks, after their push across the border from Syria. They have taken over swaths of territory in Iraq, pressing south toward Baghdad and east toward the Kurdish region of Iraq. For Europeans, the specter of a humanitarian calamity — particularly involving what is being portrayed here as a Christian minority — has resonated.
President Hollande’s readiness to position himself alongside the United States in offering military support recalled his actions last year when he joined with President Obama in threatening Syria with airstrikes after the use of chemical weapons in the civil war there. The strikes never happened after the United States and Russia brokered a deal to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons program, but France nonetheless seemed to supplant Britain as America’s main European ally in Middle East military ventures. It has also combined with growing security concerns over what are estimated to be thousands of Europeans who have gone as “jihadist tourists” to join the ranks of the Islamist insurgency that now straddles Syria and Iraq.
In a reminder of those actions, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a United Nations watchdog, said on Wednesday that 581 tons of precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of the nerve gas sarin had been destroyed aboard the Cape Ray, a specially-equipped United States vessel in the Mediterranean, after being removed from Syria earlier this year. Even France, which refused to have anything to do with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, announced Wednesday that it would send arms to help alleviate a “catastrophic situation” in the north, where the militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria had been threatening Christians and encircling members of the Yazidi religious minority on remote Mount Sinjar.
Mr. Hollande also noted his support for Iraq’s designated new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, and called for the quick establishment of a unity government capable of repelling advances by ISIS fighters. Even as the plight of the Yazidis has grabbed global attention, the political elite in Baghdad has been locked in a stalemate over demands for the replacement of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. In Britain, too, where the legacy of involvement in Iraq has been contentious, there is mounting pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to take a more assertive stance.
The French announcement came a day after the European Union failed to establish a common policy among its 28 members concerning arms supplies, but concluded that individual states could, in agreement with Baghdad, send weapons to the pesh merga forces. Mr. Cameron, who is keenly aware of the taint that the first Iraq war left on a predecessor, Tony Blair, was initially cool to joining the recent American effort. But on Wednesday, he cut short a holiday in Portugal to address the crisis amid growing calls for military intervention on humanitarian grounds.
The French move also coincided with what seemed to be the gathering pace of American efforts to evacuate thousands of Yazidi people trapped on Mount Sinjar, possibly by establishing a humanitarian corridor. The mountainous area lies in inhospitable terrain close to the border with Syria. The government in London continued to insist that it was focused on humanitarian relief efforts, notably to get water and other supplies to the Yazidis who were trapped on the mountain until late Wednesday, rather than on offering direct military involvement.
In Brussels, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said on Wednesday that she was ready to hold a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers this week or next week to discuss events in Iraq, as well as the crises in Ukraine and Gaza. France and Italy had been pressing for the gathering, but it was not immediately clear when, or if, it would be held. But Mr. Cameron and other officials said Wednesday that British planes would now be transporting munitions from eastern Europe to the Kurdish forces.
In London, Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a holiday in Portugal on Wednesday to return home as the British authorities faced a mounting drumbeat of calls for stronger military action in northern Iraq. Britain has also sent three Tornado warplanes on surveillance missions to support airdrops by C-130 military cargo planes.
Earlier, Britain announced plans to send a small number of Chinook helicopters and transport military equipment supplied by other countries to Kurdish fighters in the American-led campaign against Sunni militants, officials said. Germany, which like France opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, announced Wednesday that it would dispatch nonlethal equipment to Kurds, including heavy trucks, bulletproof vests, bedding and tents.
But the government in London continued to insist that it was focused on humanitarian relief efforts, notably to get water and other supplies to the Yazidis besieged on the arid, baking heights of Mount Sinjar, rather than on offering direct military involvement. “It is something which offends us all, the advance of bloodthirsty extremists,” said a government spokesman, Steffen Seibert. “We know it is urgent to act.”
In recent days, Britain has slowly stepped up its relief effort, sending three Tornado warplanes on surveillance missions to support airdrops by C-130 military cargo planes. The steps by European governments coincided with what seemed to be the gathering pace of American efforts to help evacuate the thousands of trapped Yazidis.
“Our focus remains the humanitarian situation, particularly those trapped on Mount Sinjar,” Mr. Cameron’s office said in a statement late on Tuesday. “Three U.K. aid drops have now taken place, with two C-130s delivering 3,180 reusable water containers, filled with a total of 15,900 liters of clean water, and 816 solar lanterns overnight.” Beyond the humanitarian aspects, however, for Europeans there are also domestic political and security interests increasingly at stake.
“We will continue with these deliveries,” the statement added. “And, as part of our efforts to alleviate humanitarian suffering in Iraq, we are sending a small number of Chinook helicopters to the region for use if we decide we need further humanitarian relief options.” “It’s more than the details that are so different this time,” said François Heisbourg, a special adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research, a Paris think tank.
Chinooks are twin-rotor heavy-lift helicopters often used to transport troops and equipment. Mr. Heisbourg said that the French and others “consider that they have a degree of responsibility for Christians in the Middle East,” something he said he believed the Germans felt as well.
France was also planning a second shipment of 20 tons of humanitarian aid, including medicine, tents and water treatment equipment, that was expected to arrive Wednesday in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Foreign Ministry in Paris said. In addition, he said that the French were also motivated by the notion that any weakening of ISIS would help them reduce the dangers they saw in the return of young men from Europe who had gone to fight with the extremists.
The shipment would help 50,000 people and more aid would be sent in coming days “to aid populations in serious danger,” The Associated Press reported. The French announcement on Wednesday came on the heels of an opinion article published by the three former prime ministers who currently control the country’s main opposition party, the conservative Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP, calling for the country to take action.
The United States has taken the lead in providing support to the Kurdish region, with the Pentagon sending an additional 130 military advisers to northern Iraq to help plan the evacuation of thousands of Yazidis. “The Near East burns and Europe is looking elsewhere,” wrote François Fillon, Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Alain Juppé, in Le Monde.
The deployment brought the number of American military personnel in Iraq to more than 1,000, less than three years after the last combat troops left the country. A senior administration official said that the military was drawing up plans for consideration by President Obama that could include American ground troops in what is likely to be an international effort to rescue the refugees. The three called for a “massive engagement” by European nations, including an immediate program of further humanitarian aid and “a collective policy to supply arms to the Kurdish fighters who constitute the lone rampart against the massacre of the Christians of Iraq.”
Around 900 American military advisers and security personnel were already in Iraq working with Iraqi security forces and protecting American personnel at the embassy in Baghdad and at other sites. European Union foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the conflicts in Iraq and Ukraine. The European Union commission failed to establish a common policy among its 28 members concerning arms supplies on Tuesday, but concluded that individual states could, in agreement with Baghdad, send weapons to the Kurdish pesh merga forces who are facing the militants from ISIS.
Britain’s limited involvement has drawn complaints from high-profile former military commanders that the country, which played a central role in enforcing a no-fly zone that shielded the Kurds in the Saddam Hussein era, should do more now that Kurds are threatened by ISIS. Britain’s limited involvement has drawn complaints from high-profile former military commanders that the country, which played a central role in enforcing a no-fly zone that shielded the Kurds in the Saddam Hussein era, should do more now that Kurds are threatened.
Col. Tim Collins of the British Army, who gained prominence in the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, said the British aid effort was a “pebble in the ocean” compared to what was needed, saying the government had “left for lunch” while politicians shied from a moral obligation to help arm and train the Kurdish pesh merga forces. Col. Tim Collins of the British Army, who gained prominence in the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, said the British aid effort was a “pebble in the ocean” compared with what was needed.
“We should also be taking part in air strikes and urging our coalition partners including Turkey, France, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to take part,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph. “We should also be taking part in airstrikes and urging our coalition partners, including Turkey, France, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to take part,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
The newspaper also quoted Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the British Army during the Iraq invasion, as saying: “Given our history over recent years in Iraq, we have a moral duty to do what we can on humanitarian grounds. I would have no difficulty at all in saying that we should be alongside the United States and up the British ante to the use of air power, on humanitarian grounds.” The newspaper also quoted Gen. Mike Jackson, the head of the British Army during the Iraq invasion, as saying: “Given our history over recent years in Iraq, we have a moral duty to do what we can on humanitarian grounds. I would have no difficulty at all in saying that we should be alongside the United States and up the British ante to the use of air power, on humanitarian grounds.”
Even within the Anglican Church, there were voices raising the possibility of a stronger military response.
The Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin, a chaplain in Parliament, said in a television interview: “When you hear of such tragedy unfolding before your very eyes, you cannot help but see this is genocide. And I just think that Britain, the European Union, the world community, we have got to respond.”
She added: “Maybe we need to go to the extent of military action, I don’t know. But we need to somehow go to the assistance of these people.”
Some lawmakers have also called for Parliament to be recalled from its summer recess to debate the possibility of a broad international campaign against the Sunni militants.