NATO Mulls Iraqi Government's Request to Train Army to Fight ISIL

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO is considering assisting the Iraqi Army fight the ISIL militants.

MADRID (Sputnik) — The North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is considering assisting the Iraqi Army fight the Islamic State (ISIL) militants, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday.

“We are assessing the request which has come from the Iraqi government. There has not been any decision yet, but we are looking into how we can help the Iraqis [in] improving, increasing the capacity of taking care of their own security,” Stoltenberg said at a joint press conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo.

Stoltenberg also noted the progress made by the US-led international coalition against the ISIL, though NATO as an organization is not participating in the military operation.

The United States is leading an international coalition of over 60 nations that has been launching airstrikes against the ISIL in Iraq since August 2014, and in Syria since September 2014.

Iraqi troops as well as Kurdish militia in Iraq, known as the Peshmerga, have been fighting IS militants on the ground on a regular basis for the past year.