"Even if no one offers anything workable to be done, there are plenty of things to be said."
European Union foreign ministers are to meet Friday to discuss the crisis in Iraq, the office of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said, after key member states called for bolder action to help the country's civilians.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Ashton's office said the extraordinary meeting would also discuss the conflicts in eastern Ukraine and Gaza.
Meanwhile Justine Greening, International Development Secretary, said there had been "five successful air drops" to the region since Tuesday night.
It comes after Ms Greening's department fast-tracked £3 million of aid to four charities in the area including Mercy Corps, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and Action Against Hunger.
In a press release, the Government said the money would go towards providing food, medical supplies, water and sanitation to over 100,000 people across northern Iraq.
Kurdish Peshmerga and civilians look at an Islamic State armed vehicle that was destroyed by an American airstrike, outside of the town of Gwar in Northern Iraq. (Sam Tarling/The Telegraph)
The US confirmed in a statement it had made a sixth airdrop of food and water from "multiple airbases" which included a total of 108 bundles of supplies.
The statement added US fighter aircraft was in the area to support the mission.
Hemen Hawrami, Presidential Adviser for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Leadership Council, told ITV News the Kurds needed weapons to defeat Islamic State.
Mr Hawrami said: "We cannot fight back these heavy weapons of IS, this terror state, alone because the source of their financials. This is a real strategic threat to us and also to the international security as well."
A Kurdish peshmerga fighter, complete with national flag, stands next to his motorbike close to the Kalak Checkpoint in Iraqi-Kurdistan. (Matt Cetti-Roberts)
France's top security official said nearly 900 French citizens have gone to Middle East battlegrounds and some have joined the Islamic State group.
Despite efforts to discourage French people from joining militant groups, the figures given Wednesday by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve show the numbers of French youth leaving continue to grow.
"There are today nearly 900 from France who are part of this phenomenon, either in the theater of operations in Syria or in Iraq. There are presumably some in Iraq because the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which recruited them, takes them to all the places where it is engaged in combat," Mr Cazeneuve told France Info radio.
Security officials fear European militants will ultimately turn their skills against their homelands.
EU/JRC/Emergency Response Coordination Centre
Meanwhile the French foreign ministry said it would deliver a second shipment of humanitarian aid including 20 tons of medicine, tents and water treatment material.
It is due to arrive in the Iraqi Kurdish capital, Erbil, on Wednesday. The shipment is enough to provide assistance to 50,000 people, it said, and it pledged further operations in the coming days "to aid populations in serious danger".
President Francois Hollande also said France would deliver weapons to Kurds in Iraq.
"In order to respond to the urgent need expressed by the Kurdistan regional authorities, the president has decided, in agreement with Baghdad, to deliver arms in the coming hours," Mr Hollande's office said in a statement.
A young girl looks lout onto the in Lalish, the spiritual home of the Yazidi religion, in the mountains near Dohuk (Sam Tarling/The Telegraph)
The support comes after Australia's prime minister said he was holding open the possibility of sending a combat force to Iraq in addition to military transport aircraft to airlift humanitarian aid to refugees trapped by insurgents in northern mountains.
The suggestion that Australian combat troops could return to Iraq was widely attacked Wednesday by the government's political opponents.
But Defence Minister David Johnston played down the prospect of an Australian combat force, saying the military had only committed to sending two unarmed C-130 Hercules transport planes for humanitarian aid air drops to begin within two or three days.
The United States has carried out air strikes against members of the Islamic State jihadist group in the area of Mount Sinjar, where the UN refugee agency says up 20,000 to 30,000 people, many of them members of the Yazidi minority, are besieged.
Thousands more poured across a bridge into Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on Wednesday after trekking into Syria to escape, most with nothing but the clothes they wore.
Some women carried exhausted children, weeping as they arrived to the relative safety of Iraqi Kurdistan.
But there are still large numbers on the mountain, said 45-year-old Mahmud Bakr.
"Many of them are elderly; they cannot walk this distance," Bakr told AFP.
"My father Khalaf is 70 years old - he cannot make this journey. But up there, there is very little food and no medicine," he said.
UN minority rights expert Rita Izsak has warned they face "a mass atrocity and potential genocide within days or hours".
In a letter to Ban Ki-moon, the Pope issued a heartfelt plea to the UN secretary-general to help the stranded refugees.
Pope Francis said: "I write to you, Mr Secretary-General, and place before you the tears, the suffering and the heartfelt cries of despair of Christians and other religious minorities of the beloved land of Iraq.
"In renewing my urgent appeal to the international community to take action to end the humanitarian tragedy now underway, I encourage all the competent organs of the United Nations, in particular those responsible for security, peace, humanitarian law and assistance to refugees, to continue their efforts in accordance with the Preamble and relevant Articles of the United Nations Charter."
An Iraqi woman from the Yazidi community sits near her baby in a building under construction used as shelter in Dohuk (AFP/Getty Images)
US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that Washington is looking at options to bring the trapped civilians out.
"We will make a very rapid and critical assessment because we understand it is urgent to try to move those people off the mountains," he said.
Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the United States has sent 130 more military advisors to northern Iraq to assess the scope of the humanitarian crisis.
Islamic State militants are taking wheat from state silos in northern and western Iraq, in order to mill it there and in neighbouring Syria.
Hassan Ibrahim, director general of the Grain Board of Iraq, the Trade Ministry body responsible for procuring Iraq's wheat internationally and from local farmers, told Reuters the militants had seized wheat in recent weeks from government silos in the provinces of Nineveh and Anbar.
Meanwhile, Nouri al-Maliki's hopes of retaining power were dealt a blow by Iran, which issued a message congratulating Mr Abadi on his new role.
"We congratulate Haidar al-Abadi on his nomination as prime minister, for him personally and for religious dignitaries, the Iraqi population and its political groups," Ali Shamkhani, secretary and representative of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in Tehran.
Mr Maliki insists the premiership should be his, declaring Mr Abadi's selection a "constitutional violation", but his bid to retain power has reached a dead end with the widespread international backing for his rival, especially from Tehran and Washington.
The White House on Wednesday urged Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki to step aside and allow the man nominated to become his successor as prime minister to form a government.
"He needs to respect that process," US national security spokesman Ben Rhodes told reporters. "This is what the Iraqis themselves have decided to do."
On Wednesday the prime minister said he would not quit until the court made a decision, according to AFP, and said the appointment of Mr Abadi is a "violation" and "has no value".
Meanwhile, Iraqi troops imposed heightened security in Baghdad as tanks and Humvees were positioned on Baghdad bridges and at major intersections on Wednesday, with security personnel more visible than usual.
About 100 pro-Maliki demonstrators took to Firdous Square in the capital, pledging their allegiance to him.
But Mr Maliki ordered the armed forces on Tuesday to "stay away from the political crisis", assuaging fears that he could seek to leverage military power to stay in office.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1BeuZeg
0 comments:
Post a Comment