Politics

US-led coalition raises $2 bln aid for Kurdistan, Iraq

The international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) has raised over $2 billion aid to rebuild areas liberated from the extremist group in Iraq, said a US official.

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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) raised over $2 billion aid to rebuild areas liberated from the extremists in Iraq, said a US official on Wednesday.

Pledging Conference in Support of Iraq was held in Washington and brought together the foreign and defense ministers of 24 members of the US-led coalition against IS.

The conference was held to help Iraq in its fight against the jihadists as the group has controlled part of the country in the north.

Following the conference, Barack Obama’s special envoy Brett McGurk revealed the amount of aid in total provided by the coalition members.

“Today @StateDept our coalition raised over $2 billion to support areas in #Iraq liberated from #ISIL terrorists,” McGurk tweeted on his official Twitter account.

US Secretary of State John Kerry stated that all the countries need to be committed to providing humanitarian aid to Iraq and accelerating the process of defeating IS.

"This is a cause that truly deserves a firm and generous commitment from everybody," Kerry said.

The collected amount is to be spent on humanitarian aid for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), demining, immediate aid to the recently liberated territories and medium and long-term reconstruction and development assistance.

"The new challenge that we face is securing and aiding the recovery of liberated areas," Kerry continued. "To eliminate Da’esh [IS] from Iraq permanently, the government of Baghdad has got to be viewed as responsive to the needs of the people in all parts of the country.”

Additionally, the EU announced following the conference that they have provided $215.5 aid package as a humanitarian support to Iraq, part of the total coalition aid.

McGurk previously mentioned that IS has lost 70 percent of the territory they had originally occupied in 2014, 50 percent in Iraq and 20 percent in Syria.

Moreover, the representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to the US, Bayan Sami Abdulrahman also attended the conference as part of the Iraqi delegation led by Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

“I am very pleased to see the international community showing such a strong commitment to the people of Iraq. The support pledged today, over $2 billion, will be critical to the stabilization of the region,” Abdulrahman said.

Kurdistan Region is home to nearly two million refugees and IDPs. People inside and around Mosul, in the north of Iraq, continue to escape from IS and move to the Kurdistan Region as the Mosul offensive is planned to begin within 2016.

She also joined the coalition’s counter-IS meeting in Washington on Thursday, with the Iraq’s delegation led by Jaafari and Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi.

 

Editing by Ava Homa

Sangar Ali ,