STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS TRAVEL TO BAGHDAD, ERBIL TO DISCUSS HUMAN RIGHTS WITH IRAQI OFFICIALS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Readout of Assistant Secretary Tom Malinowski and Ambassador David Saperstein's Travel to Baghdad and Erbil, Iraq
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
February 17, 2015

Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Tom Malinowski and Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom David Saperstein met with Iraqi government leaders, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and civil society activists, including representatives of Iraq’s religious and ethnic minority communities, students, journalists, and residents of a camp for internally displaced persons in Iraq February 8-11. Their visit highlighted the importance of promoting human rights in the fight against ISIL.

Assistant Secretary Malinowski said that the United States will continue to stand with Iraqis in their fight against ISIL. He also underscored the importance of inclusive governance, respect for human rights, and protection of civil society, including Iraq’s diverse religious communities, to fully defeat ISIL’s divisive ideology and prevent its creed of hatred from emerging in another form after ISIL is defeated on the battlefield.

In meetings with Iraqi government officials, including the Ministers of Human Rights and Women’s Affairs, the Deputy Minister of Interior, and Kurdistan Ministers of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, and Peshmerga, Assistant Secretary Malinowski and Ambassador Saperstein expressed their concerns about allegations of human rights abuses by militias in Iraq. Assistant Secretary Malinowski stressed the importance of accountability for these alleged abuses and security for civilian populations, to avoid reinforcing the sectarian divisions that facilitated ISIL’s rise in the first place. Assistant Secretary Malinowski and Ambassador Saperstein also raised concerns regarding the need to protect all civilians from harm and urged the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities to do everything possible to rescue women captives whom ISIL holds and abuses.

Members of Iraq’s minority communities, including Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako and Yezidi, Sabean-Mandaean, Shabak, and Kakai leaders, described the need for inter-faith dialogue and reform of school curricula to promote understanding and conflict resolution, promote religious freedom, and to reduce sectarianism. Those displaced from the Ninewa plains area expressed fear to return to their historic homelands, and stressed the need for security, employment and education opportunities, and conflict resolution. Malinowski pressed them to avoid taking revenge against former neighbors suspected of collusion with ISIL, and Ambassador Saperstein pledged U.S. commitment to helping them return to their homelands and to meeting the needs of the displaced.

Assistant Secretary Malinowski also delivered remarks before the Middle East Research Institute in Erbil, Iraq where he thanked the people of Kurdistan for their generosity in opening their homes to the vast influx of the internally displaced, who now represent almost a third of the Kurdistan region’s population. He said that the United States stands with all people of Iraq to degrade and defeat ISIL, but highlighted that the stabilization of Iraq afterwards must be Iraqi-led and that protection of human rights and freedom of expression is a strategic component of that reconstruction as well as the defeat of ISIL.

DOD SAYS U.S. AND BRITAIN HAVE FLOWN SEVERAL AIRDROPS SINCE AUGUST 7TH

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

By Claudette Roulo

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2014 – The United States and Britain have flown 14 humanitarian airdrops since Aug. 7 to Yezidi refugees in the Sinjar Mountains in Iraq, a Defense Department official said today.

The Yezidis, a Kurdish-speaking ethnoreligious minority group, fled into the mountain area as terrorist forces from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant advanced from Syria and northward in Iraq, threatening the Kurdish region. More than 310 bundles of food, water and medical supplies have been delivered to the refugees, providing about 16,000 gallons of water and 75,000 meals, said Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville, director of operations for the Joint Staff told a Pentagon briefing. 

“In concert with our military partners, the U.S. military is responding to the United Nations security requests of the international community to do everything it can to provide food, water, shelter to those affected by this humanitarian crisis,” he said.

In addition, U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft, including F-15E Strike Eagles, F/A-18 Super Hornets and MQ-1 Predators, have executed 15 targeted airstrikes to protect U.S. citizens and forces in and around Erbil, Mayville said.

“These airstrikes have helped check the advance of ISIL forces around Sinjar and in the area west of Erbil,” he said.

Damage assessments from the airstrikes are less important than their secondary results, Mayville said, which has been a reduction to the overall threat faced by the refugees and U.S. personnel and facilities.

The current operations in Iraq are limited to protecting U.S. citizens and facilities and U.S. aircraft supporting humanitarian assistance, and to assisting in the breakup of ISIL forces that are besieging the Sinjar Mountains, the general said.

“There are no plans to expand the current air campaign beyond the current self-defense activities,” he noted. “ ...We're going to do what we need to do to protect our facilities, protect our embassy, to protect our American citizens, and to reduce this siege, as well as protect those aircraft that are providing support to Mount Sinjar,” Mayville said.

More than 60 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft are supporting coalition efforts in Iraq, the general said, and U.S. airstrikes are providing Kurdish security forces with time to fortify their defensive positions using supplies they have received from the central government of Baghdad. About 50 to 60 ISR flights are being conducted daily by U.S. aircraft, Mayville noted.

“As a result, the Kurdish security forces are holding territory in the vicinity of Erbil,” he said, “and it has been reported in the media they retook key communities near Erbil itself.”

While U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq have slowed ISIL's operational tempo and temporarily disrupted their advance toward Erbil, Mayville said, the “strikes are unlikely to affect ISIL's overall capabilities or its operations in other areas of Iraq and Syria.”

ISIL is still intent on securing and gaining territory throughout Iraq, he said, and it will continue to attack Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, Yezidis, Christians and other minorities.

“I think, in the immediate areas where we have focused our strikes, we've had a very temporary effect,” the general said. “And we may have blunted some tactical decisions to move in those directions and move further east to Erbil.

“What I expect the ISIL to do is to look for other things to do, to pick up and move elsewhere. So I in no way want to suggest that we have effectively contained or that we are somehow breaking the momentum of the threat posed by ISIL,” he said.

Over the weekend, the government of Iraq and Iraqi security forces re-supplied Kurdish forces, Mayville said, noting that the department is considering additional ways to support the Kurds and also examining the possibility of expanding the support provided by an assessment team in Baghdad.

“We are, right now, gripped by the immediacy of the crisis,” the general said. “And our focus right now is to provide immediate relief to those that are suffering.”

WHITE HOUSE READOUTS: PRESIDENT OBAMA'S CALLS WITH PRESIDENT HOLLANDE OF FRANCE AND CHANCELLOR MERKEL OF GERMANY

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE 

Readout of the President's Call with President Hollande of France

The President spoke this morning with President Hollande of France about the latest developments in Iraq. The two leaders agreed on the need for an urgent, coordinated international response to the humanitarian disaster unfolding on Mount Sinjar. They underscored the serious threat that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant poses to all Iraqi communities throughout the country, and discussed the need to support the Iraqis by increasing their ability to counter these extremists. The two Presidents also discussed the targeted strikes that the Unites States is undertaking to protect U.S. personnel and prevent ISIL's advance on Erbil, and agreed to work together on a longer term strategy to counter ISIL.

Readout of the President’s Call with Chancellor Merkel of Germany

The President spoke today with Chancellor Merkel of Germany regarding the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. The two leaders agreed that any Russian intervention in Ukraine, even under purported "humanitarian" auspices, without the formal, express consent and authorization of the Government of Ukraine is unacceptable, violates international law, and will provoke additional consequences. They reiterated that we continue to urge Russia to engage with the international community and the Ukrainian government to find a political solution to the crisis.