Four people familiar with the matter said the Trump administration is planning to stop military aid to a longtime partner in the Middle East. That partner helped the United States defeat the Islamic State group and is now under attack from Iran. In recent meetings, U.S. Defense Department officials told leaders of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region that the administration is not planning to renew an agreement that funds the Peshmerga, the Kurdish security force.
The BBC spoke with two officials who took part in those talks and two other people with direct knowledge of the issue. They described the discussions on the condition that they not be named.
