8/21/14, "Germany pledges to arm Kurd forces and ‘set aside taboos’ on Iraq military role," Irish Times, Derek Scally
"Berlin is ready to arm Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants in northern Iraq, the defence and foreign ministers announced yesterday.
As
the Islamic State posted a video claiming to show the beheading of US
journalist James Foley, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier
said it was “not enough to show disgust” at their actions.
After weeks of heated debate, he said Germany
was prepared to go beyond existing promises to deliver protective
vests, night-vision goggles and humanitarian aid. “This can include
weapons,” Mr Steinmeier said at a press conference with German defence
minister Ursula von der Leyen.
He said any shipments would be “closely co-ordinated”
with EU partners and added Berlin was “aware of the risks”, namely
where the weapons end up.
But Ms von der Leyen
said it was crucial to halt the Islamic State campaign. “More important
than the question of whether or which weapons we deliver is the
readiness to set aside taboos and have an open discussion,” she told Die Zeit. “This is where we are at the moment.”
The
legacy of two World Wars has left Germans wary of military deployments,
with a new poll showing almost two-thirds of Germans opposed to arming
Kurdish forces.
Culture of restraint
But Mr Steinmeier and Ms von der Leyen appear to be coming good on their promise at Munich’s security conference in January to adapt Germany’s culture of military restraint to reflect new responsibilities and expectations from its partners.
Germany’s armed
forces, the Bundeswehr, indicated yesterday it would consider providing
hand weapons and anti-tank equipment. One complicating factor, German
military analysts say, is that Kurdish forces are more used to
Soviet-era weapons and not the more modern German weapons in the
Bundeswehr inventory.
Yesterday’s announcement
represents another step in the normalisation of Germany’s on-off
military engagement. Its first postwar deployment in Europe was the 1998 war with Serbia. Germany also sent troops to Afghanistan as part of the Nato
campaign. But it refused to join the 2003 US-led war on Iraq and
abstained from a 2011 UN Security Council vote on military action
against Libya.
Though
the world’s third-largest arms exporter, Berlin insists it operates a
restrictive regime that rules out arms exports to crisis regions."
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