Iraq

(asked on 8th September 2014) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department has taken to end the persecution of Christians in Iraq by the Islamic State.


Answered by
Tobias Ellwood Portrait
Tobias Ellwood
This question was answered on 11th September 2014

The Government is providing £23 million in humanitarian assistance to those who have fled areas of Iraq controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and have taken part in a series of airdrops to people trapped by ISIL. We are providing military assistance to the Kurdish Peshmerga as set out in the Prime Minister’s statement on 1 September so that they can restore control over areas taken by ISIL. I also met leaders of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the church to which many Iraqi Christians belong, making a statement strongly condemning the persecution that Iraq’s religious minorities have suffered.

I visited Iraq on 26-27 August and pressed the then Prime Minister-designate Haider Al-Abadi to ensure his new government in Iraq would ensure the protection of all minorities, promote human rights and reassert the rule of law.

Reticulating Splines