US extends military support for Iraq’s Kurdistan Region
The renewed agreement entails further steps to reform peshmerga forces as Pentagon aims to prepare Iraq’s forces for long-term self-sufficiency.
The United States renewed its agreement with Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Wednesday to continue providing security support in the wake of the war against the Islamic State (IS).
The Pentagon’s top official for international security affairs, Celeste Wallander, and Kurdistan Region’s Minister of Peshmerga Affairs Shoresh Ismail Abdullah inked a four-year extension to the original 2016 memorandum during a ceremony in Erbil.
President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani presided over the signing, which followed a meeting between Wallander and Iraq’s Defense Minister Jouma Anad in Baghdad.
The memorandum, which has not been made public, codifies specific guidelines on furthering institutional reform within the Kurdish peshmerga forces as well as steps for Erbil to continue bringing partisan peshmerga units under its unified command, US and Iraqi Kurdish officials told Al-Monitor.
