Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides announced on Friday that two shipments of Serbian Zastava rifles and ammunition have already been sent via US authorities.
The Ministry of Peshmerga could not immediately confirm the deliveries. Secretary General Jabar Yawar said whatever assistance they receive comes under the auspices of the US-led international de-ISIS coalition.
Kasoulides added that further assistance would be sent via coalition partners. He expressed Cypriot support for Iraq's territorial integrity.
France has helped to deliver unused arms and ammunition from Cyprus to other Middle East countries like Lebanon and Jordan, whose armed forces are fighting ISIS and other threats.
Kasoulides was attending a conference on Thursday and Friday regarding international protection for holy sites and worship in Europe.
"As the recent events in Syria and Iraq have proven once again, religion is used both as a means and as an end during armed conflicts," he stated at the Conference of European Churches.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians from Iraq sought shelter in the Kurdistan Region when ISIS nearly overran the country.
He added that religion is used "as a means to create divisions. As a means to rally men and resources against the 'others.'”
"It is also an 'end,' an end which in its most bleak manifestation aims at and leads to a 'cultural genocide,' the violent eradication of the cultural and ethnological connection of local populations from their land."
Nearly 2,000 Kurdish Peshmerga gave their lives in the anti-ISIS fight. Another 10,000 were wounded and continue to seek treatment abroad for injuries.
