LONDON - As Kurdish Peshmerga forces try to regain lost territory under the cover of US air power, more international voices of support pour in for the Kurds in their fight against the threat of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS), especially from Britain and France.
“Support should have been given to the KRG several weeks ago,” prominent UK Labor MP Mike Gapes told Rudaw. “And greater pressure should have been put on Maliki to establish a government of national unity,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
“Humanitarian assistance alone is insufficient,” he added. “The UK and other NATO countries should provide military assistance and support with logistics, weapons and air power to the KRG.”
The United Kingdom has joined the US-led humanitarian effort to save thousands of Yezidi Kurds displaced by the IS group and stranded on Mount Shingal for more than a week.
UK planes made their first round of airdrops on Sunday.
British Prime Minister David Cameron was one of the first world leaders to condemn the “barbaric attacks” against civilians by the IS, saying: “I am extremely concerned by the appalling situation in Iraq and the desperate situation facing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. I am especially concerned for the minority Yezidi community now trapped on Mount Sinjar (Shingal), where they have fled for their lives.”
Meanwhile in an article in the Telegraph on Sunday, London Mayor Boris Johnson voiced his support for the Kurdistan Region and British intervention to save the region from the Islamic state.
“Now look at poor Kurdistan,” Johnson wrote. “Barely 20 miles from their prosperous capital the Kurds face one of the most horrible and brutal armies since the Middle Ages.”
The London mayor wrote that relations between UK and Kurdistan has grown in the past few years and he described the Kurdistan Region as an oasis of stability in the Middle East.
“In the last few years the links between Britain and Kurdistan have been developing fast, with the first ministerial delegation from London arriving there two years ago,” he wrote. “Standard Chartered Bank has established there, as well as many other firms,” he said.
“They are going not simply because Kurdistan has theoretically the sixth largest oil deposits in the world, but because the place is an oasis of stability and tolerance,” said Johnson, who met with Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in May. “They have a democratic system; they are pushing forward with women’s rights; they insist on complete mutual respect of all religions,” he added.
Also on Sunday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius flew to Erbil where he met with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani and pledged his country’s support for the Kurds in their new challenge and war against the Islamist militants, particularly in the form of humanitarian aid.
Kurdish leaders have welcomed the humanitarian aid provided by the US and UK, but also urged the world for advanced weapons needed to fight the militants on their southern borders.
“Today the people of Kurdistan and Iraq are threatened by a fanatical and barbaric terrorist organization that wishes to dominate the Middle East,” Barzani wrote in an article in the Washington Post on Sunday. “We are resolved to defeat this threat with the help of the United States and our friends around the world.”
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