Wednesday 13 August 2014 16.17 French President Francois Hollande said his country will deliver weapons to Kurdish forces fighting Islamic extremists in Iraq.
"In order to respond to the urgent need expressed by the Kurdistan regional authorities, the president has decided, in agreement with Baghdad, to deliver arms in the coming hours," Mr Hollande's office said in a statement.
"France intends to play an active role by providing, along with its partners and in liaison with the new Iraqi authorities, all the assistance required."
France provided 18 tonnes of humanitarian aid at the weekend and a new shipment of 20 tonnes of aid arrived in northern Iraq today.
Thousands of members of minority groups, including Yazidis and Christians, continue to face a major threat from the IS jihadist group amid a worsening humanitarian situation.
The UN said yesterday that 20,000 to 30,000 people were still stranded on Sinjar Mountain.
UN minority rights expert Rita Izsak warned they face "a mass atrocity and potential genocide within days or hours".
British Prime Minister David Cameron said "detailed plans are now being put in place" for an international mission to rescue the stranded Yazidis.
"Britain will play a role in delivering it," he said, after returning from holiday to chair an emergency committee to discuss the crisis
Mr Cameron insisted that the UK involvement remained a humanitarian mission.
EU foreign ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the crisis.
Earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US is urgently assessing how to move civilians off the mountain.
The US has been leading an increasingly international effort to deliver humanitarian assistance to those trapped in the Kurdish region, and Mr Kerry said ways to evacuate people were being discussed.
"That is exactly what we are assessing," he said in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara, when asked about further humanitarian aid and how to get civilians off the mountain.
"We will make a very rapid and critical assessment because we understand it is urgent to try to move those people off the mountains."
After seizing the main northern city of Mosul in early June and sweeping through much of the Sunni heartland, jihadist militants began another onslaught this month.
They attacked Christian, Yazidi, Turkmen and Shabak minorities west, north and east of Mosul, sparking a mass exodus.
The militants also attacked the large town of Sinjar, forcing thousands of mainly Yazidi civilians to hide on Mount Sinjar, where they found themselves trapped on the mountain in the searing summer heat with little to eat or drink.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said it will take a court ruling for him to leave power, defying the president's decision to task a rival with forming a government.
"I confirm that the government will continue and there will not be a replacement for it without a decision from the federal court," Mr Maliki said in his televised weekly address.
The two-term prime minister has accused President Fuad Masum of violating the constitution by approving the nomination of Haidar al-Abadi, a member of his Dawa party, to form a government, and vowed he would sue.
But the prospects of Mr Maliki, who said in 2011 that he would not seek a third term, succeeding in his quest to cling to office appear dim.
Whatever ruling the court might deliver, analysts say Mr Maliki has lost too much support to stay in power.
International backing has meanwhile poured in for Mr Abadi, including from both the US and Iran, the two main foreign power-brokers in Iraq.
Pope urges world to protect civilians
Pope Francis has called urgently on the international community to protect all victims and potential victims of violence in northern Iraq.
He has also called on the wider world to guarantee all necessary assistance, especially the most urgently needed aid, to the large number of people who have been driven from their homes and whose fate depends entirely on the solidarity of others.
In a statement issued by the Vatican, the Pontiff was said to be "following with deep concern the dramatic news reports involving defenceless populations".
He said "Christian communities are particularly affected" with people fleeing their villages because of the raging violence that's wreaking havoc on the entire region.
In light of what the statement calls "these terrible developments", the Pope also renewed his spiritual closeness to all those suffering in the region, a closeness he declared publicly in the Vatican over three weeks ago.
He appealed to the conscience of all people and echoed "the impassioned calls" of bishops in the war-torn region to all Catholics "to raise up with one voice a ceaseless prayer, imploring the Holy Spirit to send the gift of peace".
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