COPENHAGEN, Denmark – A call by France to arm the Kurds in their fight against the Islamic State (IS/ISIS) in northern Iraq drew broad support from a cross section of diplomats, academics and politicians.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday urged the European Union (EU) for an urgent meeting aimed at arming the Peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Urging his colleagues in the European Union to break their summer vacation in order to urgently discuss the issue, Fabius noted: “It’s very nice that we in Western countries are in a summer vacation period, but people are dying and we have to come back from vacation.”
Dellawar Ajgeiy, the KRG representative in the European Union capital of Brussels, told Rudaw the EU would normally meet after the holiday period in late August, but that France has asked for an extraordinary meeting next week.
"It is vital that we get weapons for the war against ISIS, which is not only our war, but the entire world’s war on terror," Ajgeiy said.
Noting that some European countries may be reluctant for greater military engagement in Iraq, he explained that the Kurds needed weapons, not troops.
"We do not expect the Europeans to send their sons. We have Peshmergas to handle the problem, but we need weapons so that we can defend minorities and refugees," he said.
He added that many of the IS militants are often religious extremists coming from European countries.
"Many of them are European citizens. The EU is committed to stop terrorists from their countries,” Ajgeiy said, estimating that EU member states would not be against weapons support to the KRG.
Saliha Fetteh, an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies at University of Southern Denmark, said she normally would not favor arms supplies and more fighting, but that without outside help Iraq’s Kurdish-Yezidis could be decimated by the militants.
"Yezidism will soon be dead in Iraq," without action, said Fetteh, who has lived and studied in Iraq.
“Once, one of the Middle East's largest Jewish communities lived in Iraq. Today they are gone. The Yezidis are today's Jews," she told Rudaw. “Even under Saddam Hussein's tyranny, the Yezidis had a better life than under ISIS. They had no political freedom under Saddam, but they were not considered infidels and threatened with genocide."
There is also broad support for Fabius’s initiative in the French Parliament.
"We are already engaged on the humanitarian level, but we have to give the Kurds weapons too,” Claude Goasguen, a member of the French National Assembly, told the Le Parisien newspaper.
Bernard Kouchner, former French foreign minister, told the Europe 1 radio: “There is a terrible disproportion. Extremists, terrorists have recovered tanks, heavy guns from the Iraqi army who fled when they were about to take Mosul. On the opposite side the Kurds are equipped with small arms.”
The opposition National Front has not commented on the issue, but last week its leader Marine Le Pen advocated for French "logistical assistance and support in the field of intelligence" to "governments fighting military-Islamist forces," according to Le Parisien.
Around 150,000 Kurds live in France, many of whom arrived in the mid-1990s after escaping Saddam’s anti-Kurdish campaigns.
The news of French support for the KRG created widespread joy among Kurds in France.
"I am very pleased that the French reach out to us,” said Enwer Xeme, who lives in Paris and works as an engineer. “This is a big step for humanity and enhances loyalty to France among us Kurds," the Iraqi Kurd told Rudaw.
Leyla Pekoz, a French writer and researcher with roots in Turkey’s Kurdish regions agreed.
"France has supported the Kurdish nation in 1991 and now supports us again. We will not forget," she told Rudaw, referring to the Iraqi no-fly zones proclaimed by the United States, Britain and France after the 1991 Gulf War to protect the Kurds against Saddam’s air force.
Pekoz said she hoped that, with European support, the Kurds would one day have their own independent state.
"Only when we have our own state we will be able to live without persecution and massacres," she said.
The French foreign minister told France Info radio on Monday that the Kurds needed weapons because they don’t have the arms needed to fight the extremists.
“There is an evident imbalance between this horrible group which has sophisticated weapons and the Kurdish Peshmergas, who are courageous but don’t have these weapons,” Fabius said.
