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UK Recognizes 'Acts of Genocide' against Iraq's Yazidis by ISIS

Bahar Elias, a displaced Iraqi woman from the Yazidi community, sits with her son and daughters at the Sharya camp in northern Iraq on April 22, 2023, holding photos of family members kidnapped by ISIS. © Safin Hamid, AFP
Bahar Elias, a displaced Iraqi woman from the Yazidi community, sits with her son and daughters at the Sharya camp in northern Iraq on April 22, 2023, holding photos of family members kidnapped by ISIS. © Safin Hamid, AFP
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UK Recognizes 'Acts of Genocide' against Iraq's Yazidis by ISIS

Bahar Elias, a displaced Iraqi woman from the Yazidi community, sits with her son and daughters at the Sharya camp in northern Iraq on April 22, 2023, holding photos of family members kidnapped by ISIS. © Safin Hamid, AFP
Bahar Elias, a displaced Iraqi woman from the Yazidi community, sits with her son and daughters at the Sharya camp in northern Iraq on April 22, 2023, holding photos of family members kidnapped by ISIS. © Safin Hamid, AFP

The UK government on Tuesday officially acknowledged that the ISIS group committed "acts of genocide" against the Yazidi people in 2014.

The Yazidis where target of ISIS extremists and were subjected to massacres, forced marriages and sex slavery during the militants' 2014-15 rule in the northern Iraq province of Sinjar, the Yazidis' traditional home.

The UK foreign office made the announcement ahead of events to mark "the nine year anniversary of atrocities" committed by ISIS against the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority in Iraq.

"The UK has today formally acknowledged that acts of genocide were committed against the Yazidi people by ISIS in 2014," the statement said.

So far, the UK has acknowledged only four other instances where genocide has occurred, the Holocaust, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and acts of genocide in Cambodia.

"The Yazidi population suffered immensely at the hands of ISIS nine years ago and the repercussions are still felt to this day," UK's Middle East minister Tariq Ahmad said in the statement.

"Justice and accountability are key for those whose lives have been devastated," he added.

Murad Ismael, co-founder of global Yazidi organization Yazda, hailed the UK recognition as an "important step".

"Acknowledgement is the heart of justice process and helping victims to heal from the deep wounds of this genocide," he told AFP.

"I am pleased that the UK government has formally recognized the horrors suffered by the Yazidis as genocide", said Nadia Murad, a Yazidi Nobel Peace Prize Laureate campaigning against the use of sexual violence in war, particularly against the Yazidis.

"I hope that the British government will now begin to seek justice for the victims by holding British-born fighters to account," she added.

"The world cannot afford to let ISIS members walk free. It sends a message to the world that you can murder and rape with impunity."

The UK's lower house of parliament, the House of Commons, had unanimously voted to condemn the ISIS's treatment of Yazidis and Christians in Iraq as amounting to genocide in 2016, in a rare instance of parliamentary determination of genocide.

The foreign ministry had refused to acknowledge the genocide then, in keeping with a long-standing policy on the determination of genocide by courts rather than governments.

Nearly six years since Iraq declared "victory" over ISIS, many Yazidis have still not been able to return to Sinjar.

Thousands still live in precarious conditions in camps for displaced people.

Those who have returned face an unstable security situation and inadequate or nonexistent public services.

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Russia and Ukraine to Hold First Peace Talks in Seven Weeks 

A security personnel stands guard in front of the Ciragan Palace before the third meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations for peace talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, 23 July 2025. (EPA)
A security personnel stands guard in front of the Ciragan Palace before the third meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations for peace talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, 23 July 2025. (EPA)
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Russia and Ukraine to Hold First Peace Talks in Seven Weeks 

A security personnel stands guard in front of the Ciragan Palace before the third meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations for peace talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, 23 July 2025. (EPA)
A security personnel stands guard in front of the Ciragan Palace before the third meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations for peace talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, 23 July 2025. (EPA)

Russian negotiators flew to Türkiye to hold peace talks with Ukraine on Wednesday, the Kremlin said, before what will be the first direct discussions between the warring sides in more than seven weeks. 

Russia played down expectations of any breakthrough at the meeting, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said this week should focus in part on preparing a summit between himself and President Vladimir Putin. 

"Naturally, no one expects an easy road. Naturally, this will be a very difficult conversation. The projects (of the two sides) are diametrically opposed," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. 

Previous talks in Istanbul on May 16 and June 2 led to the exchange of thousands of prisoners of war and the remains of dead soldiers. But those meetings lasted less than three hours in total and made no breakthrough towards a ceasefire or a settlement to end almost three and a half years of war. 

US President Donald Trump last week threatened heavy new sanctions on Russia and countries that buy its exports unless a peace deal was reached within 50 days. 

But three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Putin, unfazed by Trump's ultimatum, would keep on fighting in Ukraine until the West engaged on his terms for peace, and that his territorial demands may widen as Russian forces advance. 

On Wednesday, Russia said its forces had captured the settlement of Varachyne in Ukraine's Sumy region, where Putin has ordered his troops to create a buffer zone after Ukraine mounted a shock incursion into Russia last year and held onto a chunk of its territory for months. Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield report. 

In recent weeks, Russian forces have launched some of their heaviest air attacks of the war, focusing especially on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. 

Ukraine has hit back with attacks of its own, and last month inflicted serious damage on Russia's nuclear-capable strategic bomber fleet by smuggling drones close to air bases deep inside the country. 

CONFLICTING DEMANDS 

Zelenskiy said earlier this week that the agenda for talks was clear: the return of prisoners of war and of children abducted by Russia, and the preparation of a meeting between himself and Putin. 

Putin turned down a previous challenge from Zelenskiy to meet him in person and has said he does not see him as a legitimate leader because Ukraine, which is under martial law, did not hold new elections when Zelenskiy's five-year mandate expired last year. Russia also denies abducting children. 

The Kremlin said this week it was unrealistic to expect "miracles" from the talks. 

At the last meeting on June 2, Russia handed Ukraine a memorandum setting out its key demands, including: full withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from four regions of the country that Russia has claimed as its own; limits on the size of Ukraine's military; enhanced rights for Russian-speakers in Ukraine; and acceptance by Kyiv of neutral status, outside NATO or any other alliance. 

Ukraine sees those terms as tantamount to surrender, and Zelenskiy described the Russian stance as an ultimatum. 

Ukraine wants an immediate ceasefire, reparations, international security guarantees and no restrictions on its military strength.