Pentagon chief Ashton Carter met Iraqi Kurdish president Massud Barzani on Friday on the second day of a trip to Iraq aimed at reviewing efforts to defeat the Islamic State group. The US defence secretary reiterated his commitment to assisting the autonomous northern Iraqi region, which has been at the forefront of efforts to counter the jihadists.
Carter “commended President Barzani on the battlefield successes they’ve achieved on the ground in coordination with US and coalition air power,” a Pentagon statement said.
Several high-ranking Kurdish military officials attended the talks in the Kurdish capital Arbil with Carter, on his first trip to Iraq since taking office earlier this year.
The threat posed to Arbil by an IS advance in early August 2014 was one of the reasons cited by US President Barack Obama for announcing US air strikes days later. An international coalition has since developed and carried out thousands of air strikes, many in support of Kurdish peshmerga forces fighting IS on the ground.