At the ongoing NATO summit in Wales, Denmark has agreed to join a US-led ‘core’ coalition heading to Iraq to take the fight to the jihadist organisation Islamic State (IS).
The foreign minister Martin Lidegaard told DR Nyheder that Denmark has accepted the invitation the Americans extended to the Danes and eight other nations including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Canada and Poland.
“We’ve agreed to this at a hastily arranged meeting this morning,” Lidegaard told DR Nyheder. “And we are already active.”
“Fortunately, it was a unanimous parliament that agreed to contribute to the transportation of weapons and humanitarian aid.”
READ MORE: Danes sign on to NATO Alliance initiatives
Not only military contribution
The US secretary of defence John Kerry announced that IS need to be attacked in ways that prohibit them from gaining any more territory and help the Iraqi security forces and others in the region be able to take them on.
Lidegaard said that the strategy not only included contributing military equipment, but also finding out how to stop IS funding the flow of young people leaving Denmark to go to fight in the area.
However, for now, the Danish contribution will remain the Hercules transport aircraft that parliament approved last week.
“We have not been asked to provide anything else yet,” Lidegaard said. “I can’t reject that this will happen and at some point we need to take a stand in the matter.”
