NEWPORT, Wales: Britain said on Thursday it was considering arming Kurdish forces but Prime Minister David Cameron signaled he would not sanction UK airstrikes against Islamic State militants before a new Iraqi government is in place.

Britain has so far carried out aid drops and surveillance and transported military supplies to Kurdish regional forces allied with the Baghdad central government.

Other European countries, including Germany, France and Italy have already agreed to send Kurdish forces a quantity of light weapons to use against the militants.

“We’re prepared to do more and we’re considering actively whether to give them arms ourselves and whether we can do more directly to train Kurdish militia — we’re already playing a role there but we can do more,” Cameron told ITV.

Cameron, hosting a two-day NATO summit in Wales, said he was not ruling anything out in the effort to “squeeze” the Islamic State (IS) “out of existence,” but signaled Britain would not join US airstrikes before a new Iraqi government is in place.

Meanwhile, Islamic State militants kidnapped 40 men from a town in Iraq’s northern province of Kirkuk on Thursday, dragging the men into cars before driving off, residents said.

Residents of the Sunni town of Hawija said by telephone they did not know why the men had been taken, from a district on the edge of the town. They added that Islamic State, which controls Hawija, had not faced any resistance from its inhabitants.

Islamic State has seized hundreds of Iraqi and Syrian soldiers as well as members of other insurgent groups, journalists and civilians. Some have been sold for ransom and others have been killed.