The UK last night agreed to transport military supplies to the Kurds fighting Islamic State in Iraq.
Ministers have also agreed to send Chinook helicopters to help with the aid effort.
David Cameron has been urged not to stand by amid "ethnic cleansing" in Iraq and recall MPs to vote on UK military intervention.
The call came in a letter to the Prime Minister, who is still on holiday in Portugal, from one of his own backbenchers, Conor Burns, as United Nations human rights experts warned that the world must take all possible measures to prevent a massacre of minorities in the country.
Mr Burns was one of a number of Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs who demanded greater action yesterday. Among them was former LibDem leader Sir Menzies Campbell, who said that the Coalition Government would be well advised to recall parliament and keep an open mind on military action.
But demands for MPs to debate intervention were ruled out by the Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
Thousands of people are still trapped on a mountainside in Northern Iraq, many without food or water, after fleeing from Islamic State (Isis) jihadists.
The UK has already sent Tornado fast jets to Iraq to work in a surveillance role to help with the aid effort.
An extra £3 million will be given to charities supplying humanitarian aid to more than 100,000 people in northern Iraq.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article