Nouri al-Maliki drops his bid for a third term as prime minister of Iraq and pledges support for his replacement, Haider al-Abadi. Maliki had resisted months of pressure to step down from Sunnis, Kurds, Iran and the US. Kurds in the northern capital Irbil are arming themselves as Kurdish Peshmerga continue to fend off Isis insurgents nearby. Guardian
The EU foreign affairs council has released its statement on today’s meeting in Brussels. Here is the key passage on arming the Kurds.
The EU welcomes the US efforts to support the Iraqi national and local authorities in their fight against ISIL and recognises international and European responsibility to cooperate with Iraq in our common fight against terrorism. The Council also welcomes the decision by individual Member States to respond positively to the call by the Kurdish regional authorities to provide urgently military material. Such responses will be done according to the capabilities and national laws of the Member States, and with the consent of the Iraqi national authorities. The EU will assess how to prevent ISIL benefitting from oil sales and condemns those funding the ISIL in contravention of UNSCR 1267 and subsequent resolutions. The Ministers invite the European External Action Service to ensure a stronger presence in Erbil.
At the same time the EU reiterated its firm commitment to Iraq’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity. But a decision to support the Kurds militarily could hasten a Kurdish breakaway and a Kurdish state.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, said Germany would go to the limits of what is “legally and politically possible”, and that would be clearer after his trip to Iraq this weekend.
Reuters has more on the EU’s willingness - or at least some EU countries including Britain - to arm Kurdish fighters.
The European Union said on Friday that individual EU governments were free to send weapons to Iraqi Kurds battling Islamic militants provided they had the consent of Iraqi national authorities.
EU foreign ministers holding an emergency meeting in Brussels did not reach a united position to all send arms to the Iraqi Kurds but welcomed the decision by some EU governments, such as France, to do so.
The EU said it would also look at how to prevent Islamic State militants, who have overrun some oilfields in Syria and Iraq, benefiting from oil sales. The bloc also called for a swift investigation of human rights abuses in Syria and Iraq, saying some may be crimes against humanity.
Sunni leaders issue demands to new Baghdad government
Sunni leaders have threatened to side with the Kurdish regional government unless Baghdad agrees to a series of demands including banning of Nouri al-Maliki’s inner circle from office and the decentralisation of power to the provinces.
Speaking at a press conference in Irbil, spokesman Najeh al-Meizan said the removal of Maliki as prime minister was only the first step towards solving Iraq’s problems.
Flanked by other Sunni leaders, Meizan, called for a halt to attacks on Sunni provinces.
Speaking through an al-Jazeera translator, Meizan, said: “We call on the US to limit air strikes to armed groups and not to include rebellious provinces.”
He threatened: “If the government fails to respond we are prepared to cooperate with the government of Kurdistan in our fight against terrorism.”
Meizan said the new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, should not appoint any of Maliki’s aides to the new government.
He also called for a referendum on the decentralisation of Iraq into a series of provincial governments.
Among a long list of demands Meizan also called for sectarian balance in the Iraqi army, the judiciary and key government ministries.
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German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he would travel to Iraq at the weekend to see what could be done to support Kurdish security forces, Reuters reports.
It quotes him saying:
It is a situation in which we must not simply welcome that the U.S. have given aerial support to stop the advance of the Islamic State ... Europeans should not limit themselves to praising the courageous fight of the Kurdish security forces.
We will have to see what we can do to support the security forces in Kurdistan. I have said we will have to go the limits of what is legally and politically possible.
Earlier this week France became the first European nation to commit to arming the Kurds after its foreign minister travelled to Iraq.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier speaks with journalists as he arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. Photograph: Virginia Mayo/AP Photograph: Virginia Mayo/AP
Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, has confirmed that Britain plans to arm the Kurds.
Speaking to reporters at the EU foreign affairs meeting in Brussels, Hammond said: “The UK will also consider favourably any request for supply of arms. We are already shipping ammunition and supplies from east European countries into Ibril.”
Reconnaissance experts have expressed surprise at how the US misjudged the scale of the humanitarian crisis on Mount Sinjar, Foreign Policy reports.
Using drones and satellite imagery, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency made initial refugee estimates for the United States. Getting a firm head count was impossible because the refugees were constantly moving around the mountain and entering and exiting scattered tents, putting them beyond surveillance capabilities, according to US officials.
“Experts don’t think [initial estimates] were inaccurate in retrospect,” a U.S. official said. “It was that the situation improved more quickly than perhaps we had thought.”
But air-surveillance experts say the Pentagon should have been able to estimate more accurately how many people were still on the mountain.
“It’s a bit of a surprise that there was that degree of uncertainty,” David Deptula, a retired Air Force three-star general who was the chief of staff for the service’s Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance headquarters, told Foreign Policy.
Drone operators typically feed pictures to intelligence analysts on the ground who could use them to determine roughly how many people are in an area under surveillance -- and, in this case, how many might be leaving. Most ISR aircraft can discern between a couple of thousand people or tens of thousands of people, said Deptula, now the dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Virginia.
“It’s pretty straightforward: You survey the region that you’re interested in over a period of time, then you count the number of people who are there,” he said. “It’s not rocket science.”
Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing the violence in the Iraqi town of Sinjar, re-enter Iraq from Syria at the Iraqi-Syrian border crossing in Fishkhabour, Dohuk province, Photograph: Youssef Boudal/Reuters Photograph: YOUSSEF BOUDLAL/REUTERS
Farhad Atrushi, the governor of Duhok Province, has warned of a “genocide” in northern Iraq which he said the international community had a duty to stop.
Speaking to the BBC’s Caroline Wyatt he said: “It is a real genocide. Inside Duhok province we have hundreds of thousands [of displaced people]. We are going to face an international humanitarian catastrophe.”
He added: “We are in need of weapons ... The international community has to move because this is threat to international peace.”
Atrushi conceded that Iraq was close to breaking up. And he added that Britain and US had an ethical duty to help because they promised a stable and democratic Iraq.
France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius said he called for today’s talks in Brussels to lobby for Europe-wide help for Kurds and Iraqis in their fight against Islamic State militants.
“I asked for this meeting so that all of Europe mobilises and helps the Iraqis and Kurds,” Fabius said as he arrived for the talks, AFP reports.
Italy, which currently holds the EU’s rotating leadership and whose foreign minister Federica Mogherini is shortlisted to become the next EU foreign affairs chief, also called for talks.
“The Kurds need our support,” she said as she arrived at the meeting.
“It is important for us for there to be a European agreement,” she added.
Defence matters are strictly the purview of member states and the push for an EU stance to send arms to a conflict zone is a rare one.
But alarming images of Iraqi minorities, including Christians, under siege by jihadists have struck chords in European capitals.
EU governments are also alarmed by the Islamic State’s ability to attract radicals from Europe who then return home to the West battle-hardened.
Ahead of Friday’s meeting, support for a strong message on arming Iraq was growing, even from member states historically less inclined to back military adventures abroad.
Usually cautious Germany this week pledged to work “full-speed” on the supply of “non-lethal” equipment such as armoured vehicles, helmets and flak jackets to Iraq.
Germany is a major arms manufacturer and going into the meeting, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier seemed ready to boost German action despite national restrictions limiting arms exports into raging conflicts.
“Europeans must not limit themselves to praising the courageous fight of the Kurdish security forces. We also need to do something first of all to meet basic needs,” he said.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius gives a perfect Gallic shrug to Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard at the start of a EU foreign affairs meeting in Brussels. Photograph: Julien Warnand/EPA Photograph: JULIEN WARNAND/EPA
Iraq most senior Shia cleric has urged the country’s political factions to cooperate with the prime minister designate Abadi in forming a new government. A Friday sermon read out on behalf of Ayatollah Sistani also called on Abadi to stamp out corruption, al-Sumaria TV reports.
Iraqi Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images
Britain’s defence secretary, Michael Fallon, will become the third senior minister this week to chair a meeting of the government’s emergency committee to discuss Iraq. The last two meetings were chaired by the prime minister, and before Cameron’s return from holidays the task fell to the foreign secretary Philip Hammond.
The Defence Secretary will chair COBR meeting at 12:00 to discuss the latest situation in #Iraq and UK response
Philip Hammond, Britain’s foreign secretary, has welcomed Maliki’s support for Haider al-Abadi’s nomination as Iraqi prime minister designate. Hammond, who is in Brussels for a meeting of EU foreign ministers, said al-Abadi has Britain’s full backing.
Prime minister Maliki’s decision to place his support behind prime minister-designate al-Abadi, as he works to form a new Iraqi Government, is an important step at a crucial moment for Iraq. We congratulate him on acting so clearly in the national interest of Iraq.
Iraq must see a smooth transition of power, and I hope this decision will contribute to the quick formation of a unified and inclusive government that can address the serious security, humanitarian and political challenges that Iraq faces. Prime minister-designate al-Abadi can be assured he has Britain’s full commitment to working with an inclusive Iraqi government formed with the main Shia, Sunni and Kurdish blocks as they agree on immediate actions against ISIL and measures to protect all Iraqi citizens and command the lasting support of the international community.
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