NL may send supplies to Iraq

The Ministry of Defense may take part in the strategic transport of goods for North Iraq, according to De Telegraaf. The paper writes that the Ministry is currently measuring the possibility of this, which may be restricted by the European connection via the European Air Transport Command. The Cabinet has delivered €400,000 extra to the Red Cross, which was requested by the Kurdish authorities for areas of Iraq under threat, De Telegraaf reports. 

Minister Frans Timmermans said this in response to questions asked by the CDA, ChristenUnie and the SGP on Saturday. These parties are worried about the state of the religious minority groups in the north of Iraq who, due to pressure from the threat of ISIS, are under threat. The parties want the Cabinet and the EU to take an active role in preventing this from happening, De Telegraaf writes.

Minister Timmermans says that this desperate situation is known to the Cabinet, and that The Netherlands is active in providing aid to the humanitarian crisis. In co-operation with UN groups and Turkey, food and water parcels are being dropped by the Americans and the Brits as well as the Iraqis and Kurds.

Despite Minister Timmermans mention of the EU's effort, making €17 million available for humanitarian aid to the region, and his insistence that the Cabinet is pleading for the EU to stimulate a unity government in Iraq in which all parties, political as well as sectarian, are represented, the concerned parties were still unsatisfied with the Dutch stance against the crisis in Iraq.

Pieter Omtzigt, MP for the CDA, is disappointed that there is no mention of a genocide, which America's Barack Obama has done. "That weighs heaviest for us", Omtzigt says. "If a suspicion is announced, The Netherlands can already put mechanisms into gear. Like research to counteract possible IS-fighters with a Dutch passport."