Australian special forces bound for Iraq stuck in UAE

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Some 200 Australian special forces bound for Iraq have been stuck in the United Arab Emirates since mid-September because Baghdad has failed to offer legal protection, Tony Abbott, Australian prime minister said on Wednesday.

The forces are intended to conduct “advise and assist” missions with the Iraqi army against ISIS but there is no agreement with the government led by Haider Al Abadi, prime minister, over their legal status.

"I made it very clear to the prime minister in New York a couple of weeks ago that we were very keen to help," Abbott told reporters.

Iraq was sending mixed signals on whether it wanted the special forces in the country, said Australia’s news.com web site which broke the story.

Australian fighter jets began hitting targets in Iraq earlier this month as part of the US-led coalition.

Abbott said that he was confident a deal would be reached but it remained unclear why negotiations had dragged on so long and why Canberra was insisting on legal protections that other coalition partners seemed willing to forego, Reuters reported.

The US, Britain and Germany currently have military specialists operating in some capacity in Iraq without the type of formal Status of Forces Agreement that Australia appeared to be demanding for its troops.

"I made it crystal clear that our special forces are ready to go and there is an enormous amount of good that they can do inside Iraq,” Abbott said. “But we owe it to our special forces only to deploy them with the right legal protections."