ROME- Italy may send a first consignment of AK-47 Kalashinikov assault rifles for Kurdish forces to Erbil aboard a C-130J aircraft "within two or three days," defence ministry sources said Tuesday.

Since Kurdish forces use mainly Soviet era military equipment, Italy is planning to send to Erbil as many as 23,000 of 30,000 Ak-47s and several tonnes of Kalashnikov ammunition that the Italian military has been holding in store in Sardinia since they were seized in 1994 during the Bosnian war from a freighter that was carrying from a Ukrainian port the assault rifles to the Croatian port of Split, the sources said.

Italyalso may send the Peshmagar guerrillas "non lethal" equipment such as lasers, bullet-proof flak jackets, bomb disposal equiment and radio communication systems, the sources added.

 Also under consideration is the dispatch to the Kurds of some older model Beretta and Browning machine guns and automatic weapons no longer in use with Italian armed forces if it is decided that they would be effective in Kurdish hands, the sources said.  

 Italy already has sent several planeloads of water, food and emergency supplies to Iraqi Kurdistan in recent days.

 On Wednesday the Italian Foreign Minister, Federica Mogherini, and Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti will address a joint session of the Foreign and Defence Committees of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate on recent developments in Iraq and decisions taken by Italy at the extraordinary EU foreign ministers' meeting held Friday.

 Pinotti earlier this week visited the arms depot in Sardinia where the AK-47s have been held for the past decade, military sources said.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, the current rotating president of the EU, says the need to curb the ISIS advance in Iraq is an opportunity "to prove that the EU is not just about the bond yield spread and Maastricht criteria."

The decision by Rome to help arm Kurdish forces has been criticised, however, by the radical opposition 5 Star Movement party headed by comic Beppe Grillo. "Ministers Mogherini and Pinotto are playing at war in Iraq without having consulted Parliament," the M5S said in a statement.

 "They should stop and report to Parliament, taking responsibility in front of the country."