WELLINGTON, March 5 — New Zealand ordered two military aircraft to the Middle East on Thursday in preparation for evacuations of its citizens from the region.
Speaking while on a tour of South America, Foreign Minister Winston Peters urged New Zealanders to “shelter in place” and leave the region if it is safe to do so.
He said Wellington would deploy “consular staff and two Defence Force planes to the region so that they can be ready when conditions allow to assist with any civilian evacuation operations”.
“We cannot be sure when and how any civilian evacuation operations might be possible, but we want to be ready if and when conditions on the ground make them possible,” he added.
Peters said the C-130 Hercules planes would ferry people out of danger to a safe country where they could use a commercial carrier to get home.
He said that over 3000 New Zealanders were registered as living in the Middle East, with 23 in Iran and 62 in Israel.
He said New Zealand may also evacuate other nationalities.
“If they’ve got any remote reason to be on our plane, we’ll grab them,” Peters said.
Countries have rushed to evacuate their citizens from the Middle East this week after US-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and sparked a regional war.
Neighbouring Australia has said it has 115,000 citizens in the region. — AFP
