The Bundestag voted on Friday to keep German military advisors in the Kurdistan region and Iraq until October 31, 2023. "The plan is to send up to 500 Bundeswehr [German army] soldiers, as before, to train and advise the regular Iraqi armed forces and security forces and to take on tasks such as air transport, sea and airspace surveillance as well as reconnaissance and situational awareness," read a statement from the German parliament.

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) top diplomat Saadi Ahmed Pira led a PUK delegation at the European Progressive Alliance Conference held in mid-October 2022 in Berlin. Speaking at the conference, the PUK representative asked German PMs and officials to continue support for the Kurdistan region and Iraq by voting to extend Bundeswehr's mission in Bundestag's scheduled session on extending Germany's military mission in Iraq.

As one of the few socialist parties in the Middle East, the PUK is an active member of socialist party groupings in Europe and across the world and its former general secretary; President Jalal Talabani was Socialist International Deputy Secretary.

The PUK welcomed the decision and hoped for further cooperation between the Kurdistan region and Germany. At the conference, Sadi Pira invited socialist democrats to visit the Kurdistan region to see the signs of progress made after the war against ISIS and the corona pandemic. 

Germany has 500 military advisers in the Kurdistan region and Iraq, whose mission is to train and provide intelligence and military information to enhance the capacity of the Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi army in the fight against ISIS.

The federal government said that it helps Iraq include "Air-to-air refueling, air transport, ground-based airspace surveillance and staff personnel, participation in NATO AWACS air surveillance flights, and advisory and staff personnel in the missions of the international anti-IS coalition as well as NATO."

In 2014, Germany began assisting the Peshmerga forces and provided weapons and ammunition to them. The German Federal Office has delivered close to three billion euros to the Peshmerga and Iraqi forces since 2013, according to the German Press and Information Office.

PUK delegation at the Progressive Alliance Conference in Berlin