National Post (National Edition)
‘NO EASY PATH OUT OF THIS MESS’
Canada’s military reviewing plan to arm Kurds
Canada’s military has confirmed it is reviewing its plan to provide the Kurds with weapons as fighting grows between Kurdish and Iraqi forces.
With ISIL in retreat, Iraqi and Kurdish forces are now battling each other. The Kurds want to separate from Iraq and, during the war against ISIL, they seized large portions of the country. That included the city of Kirkuk and nearby oil fields, which hold an estimated 40 per cent of Iraq’s oil.
The Iraqi government declared the recent Kurdish referendum supporting independence illegal and sent troops to retake Kirkuk and other territory.
Both sides have also accused each other of using weapons, provided by the West for the war against ISIL, for this new conflict.
Last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada would provide weapons to the Kurds in support of their efforts against ISIL. Canada was looking to provide the Kurds with .50-calibre sniper rifles equipped with silencers, 60mm mortars, as well as Carl Gustav anti-tank systems. Details about the numbers were withheld for security reasons.
Other gear includes grenade launchers, pistols, carbines, thermal binoculars, cameras, scopes and medical supplies.
But the Department of National Defence confirmed on Thursday an Ottawa Citizen report that the arms shipments to the Kurds are now under review.
“The Iraqi theatre of operations is dynamic and requires deliberate, responsible reflection,” DND spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier said in an email. “As is the case for any CAF operation, our contributions are constantly under assessment in order to ensure all appropriate strategic and tactical steps are taken. The program to provide equipment and small arms is no different.”
Le Bouthillier said Canada “has a responsibility to ensure any such aid is provided under the right conditions. We will continue to monitor the situation on the ground and exercise strategic prudence.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi rejected on Thursday a proposal from Kurdish leaders to have both sides enter a ceasefire. Instead, the Iraqis have increased their attacks on the Kurds. Iraqi artillery barrages struck Kurdish positions near Mosul on Thursday and paramilitaries who support Baghdad are involved in an offensive against the Kurds near the Turkish border.
Canadian special forces have provided training to Kurdish troops and a plan was developed to supply them with weapons. But it is becoming increasingly unlikely the Iraqi government will give approval for Canada to supply the Kurds, sources say. The Canadian government has insisted that the arms shipment be done with approval from the central government in Baghdad.
Defence analyst Martin Shadwick said Canada is caught in a bind. It has promised the Kurds the weapons but, since Kurdistan is still part of Iraq, it could not legally move ahead with providing small arms without Baghdad’s approval.
“There is no easy path out of this mess,” said Shadwick, who teaches at York University in Toronto.
But Shadwick said it shouldn’t come as a surprise. The issue of training and arming the Kurds has been highly controversial from the start. Kurdish leaders openly acknowledged their intent was to eventually create an independent state. The arms were needed both to fight against ISIL and to defend an independent state, they said.
Former Canadian diplomat Peggy Mason said the Canadian government’s position — support for a unified Iraq despite training, supplying and providing active support to Kurdish forces — is no longer tenable, if it ever was. The two objectives are now in direct conflict, warned Mason, president of the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute.
“The Kurds have complained about being let down by the West and one can certainly understand, given the mixed signals they received from Canada,” she said Thursday.
The previous Conservative government sent Canadian special forces to northern Iraq to train the Kurds. That program was continued by the Liberals.
When asked last year about concerns Canadian training and equipment could aid the Kurds in their quest for independence, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance replied it was important to have political unity during the fight against the Islamic State. “Where, after, Iraq decides to go in terms of its political laydown is up to Iraq,” he said.
Just before fighting broke out between the Kurds and Iraqis, Canadian Brig.-Gen. Craig Aitchison, a senior coalition officer, played down the dispute as “mostly rhetoric.”
The Kurds say at least 30 of their soldiers have been killed and another 150 wounded in ongoing clashes.
Last Friday, the Iraqis accused the Kurds of using Milan anti-tank missiles supplied by Germany against its troops.
ONE CAN ... UNDERSTAND, GIVEN THE MIXED SIGNALS THEY RECEIVED FROM CANADA.