(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) Iraq and Kurdistan on Thursday welcomed US President Barack Obama's plan to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) while Germany ruled out participation in the strikes.
British Prime Minister David Cameron supported Obama's strategy and did not rule out the possibility of the UK taking part in the airstrikes against ISIL positions inside Iraq and Syria.
In Baghdad, spokesman of Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi's office said Iraq welcomed Obama's strategy and any regional or international effort to combat ISIL and the other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria.
"All Iraqis, regardless of their religious, racial or factional backgrounds, suffer the brunt of the terrorist organizations," he said in a press release, noting that it's a national duty for all Iraqis to defeat ISIL.
In Irbil, the presidential office of Kurdistan region, north Iraq, lauded the US strategy reaffirming commitment to the international combat against ISIL.
"The advances made by ISIL in large areas of Iraq in the recent months pose a serious threat not only to Iraq and Kurdistan but to the entire region and the world as well.
"We in Kurdistan are proud of the victories recently made by the Kurdish Peshmerga forces against the ISIL in north Iraq and inflicting heavy losses on the terrorist organization," the statement added.
The statement noted that residents of central Iraq, particularly the Yazidi and Christian minorities, bore the brunt of the ISIL attacks and the subsequent fighting, and were forced to flee their homes to the northern areas.
This emergency situation added a humanitarian responsibility for Kurdistan to protect the huge number of displaced people despite the limited resources of the region, it added.
In London, Cameron's spokesman denied that Britain was against partaking in the planned airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.
Shortly after Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in Berlin that "Britain will not be taking part in any airstrikes in Syria," the spokesman said Hammond was talking about a parliament decision last year.
The Prime Minister said once and again that Britain has yet to make a decision on direct strikes on ISIL, this is the case for the time being, the spokesman made clear.
"Britain will work with the US and "other regional partners on the ground. As to what each country together, how they work in complement with each other, those are decisions for further down the line but I think you will continue to see unity of approach," the spokesman added.
In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his country Germany had decided to arm Kurdish forces fighting the ISIL extremists in north Iraq but will not to participate in the airstrikes.
"We have neither been asked to do that (participate in the strike), nor will we do so," Steinmeier affirmed in a joint press conference with Hammond.
The German minister noted that he invited his Group of Seven counterparts to discuss the planned US-led air campaign on ISIL on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly later this month.
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