UK ready to provide 'whatever help is needed' to assist those fleeing violent takeover of parts of country by Islamist extremists

Britain has deployed a humanitarian team in Iraq to assess the needs of civilians fleeing the violent takeover of parts of the country by Islamist extremists. The international development secretary, Justine Greening, said the UK stands ready to provide "whatever help is needed" to assist the hundreds of thousands of people believed to have fled their homes in northern Iraq.

But the foreign secretary, William Hague, restated the government's position that Britain will not get involved militarily in the struggle between the administration of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) group.

The al-Qaida splinter group took control this week of Iraq's second city Mosul and Saddam Hussein's home city of Tikrit as part of an effort to set up a Sunni militant enclave across the Iraq/Syria border.

Hague told the BBC: "Britain won't be getting involved militarily in this situation. We are considering if we need to send humanitarian aid. We are very concerned about the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced. With our very large humanitarian budget, we may be in a position to assist with that and we are looking at that now.

"But we will not be getting involved militarily. We will support the United States in anything they decide to do. We are in consultation with them. But I stress that it is for the Iraqi leadership primarily to respond to this. This is a democratic country with an elected government with considerable resources and the prime responsibility rests with them in their own country to deal with this issue."

Greening revealed that UK experts were on the ground assessing the needs of those caught up in the fighting. She said: "Hundreds of thousands of people, including vulnerable women and children, are being forced to flee their homes as fighting spreads across northern Iraq.

"Last night I deployed a team of humanitarian experts to assess the situation on the ground and coordinate with our partners. We are monitoring the situation very closely and stand ready to provide whatever help is needed."

The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, made clear he would resist any call to send troops to the country, where the UK took part in a US-led invasion.

On LBC's Call Clegg phone-in, he also said Britain should not go back into Iraq and stressed his personal view is that the legality of the original invasion in 2003 was "always on shaky ground".

He said "the porous border between Syria and Iraq is really becoming the absolute fulcrum for ever-more violent forces usurping the government of Iraq".

Clegg said: "It is a very dangerous situation", adding it underlined "the knock-on effects of this very bloody civil war in Syria". He said the best way to restore peace is through the politics and a settlement in Syria, but added he had no perfectly packaged solution.

Clegg said the UK government would look at any appeal for help from the Iraqi government, but added: "If the invasion of Iraq has in the first place contributed to the instability should we now be going back in to sort it? I don't think if we have made one mistake we repeat it by making a second one."