On Wednesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a bill to directly arm and equip the Kurdish Peshmerga. The measure intends to avoid delays in the delivery of defense articles to the Kurds, reportedly caused by the Iraqi central government bureaucracy.
“If your sense is you would like Iraq to be one country, then you would not go down that path of directly arming the Kurds,” Corker said on Thursday. “The Kurds would view this as a step in the direction of their independence, let’s face it.”
In recent months, Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani stated his desire to see an independent Kurdistan in the future when security situation makes such a transition feasible.
The Kurdish Peshmerga is largely considered the most effective ground force and has retaken significant territory in northern Iraq that was once seized by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant terrorists, also known as Daesh.