Germany says ready to send arms to Iraqi Kurds

Germany is ready to send weapons to support Iraqi Kurds in their battle against the ‘barbaric’ jihadist militants of the Islamic State, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Wednesday. After other European countries said they would send arms to help the embattled Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, ‘we are ready to do the same,’ Steinmeier said at a joint press conference with Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen. He called the onslaught of the IS ‘barbaric’, the suffering of refugees ‘unimaginable’, and warned that the sweeping advance of the radicals spells an ‘existential threat’ to Iraq and threatens a regional ‘conflagration’. The ministers said Germany would first send more humanitarian aid and non-lethal equipment such as helmets, night-vision goggles and explosives detectors while it checked what weapons shipments would make sense, in coordination with EU partners, according to AFP.