UK aid deliveries in Iraq 'imminent'
Philip Hammond said the aid effort would focus on helping thousands of members of the Yazidi minority trapped on a mountainside in northern Iraq.
He said air drop operations, in co-ordination with the US, could be expected for the foreseeable future.
Two cargo planes carrying aid left RAF Brize Norton earlier on Saturday.
The C-130 planes will drop supplies including tents, drinking water and mobile phone chargers as part of an £8m package of aid from the UK government.
Mr Hammond said: "We can expect a continuing drum beat of air drop operations, working in co-ordination with the US and potentially with others as well.
"More widely we are looking at how to support this group of [Yazidi] people and get them off that mountain, how we are going to facilitate their exit from what is a completely unacceptable situation.
"Air-dropping supplies is a short-term solution; it isn't a long-term solution.
"All of us are waiting for a new Iraqi government to be formed which will then have to take the lead in responding to the challenge that [militant group] Isis [now calling itself the Islamic State] is posing to the integrity of the Iraqi state," Mr Hammond said.
BBC
