BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called upon his country’s armed forces to help the Kurdish military battle a Sunni militant offensive in northern Iraq that has caused tens of thousands of people from the minority Yazidi community to flee their homes.

It was the first sign of cooperation between Baghdad and Irbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, since Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, was taken over by the Islamic State group in June, signaling a degree of rapprochement in the face of the country’s deteriorating security crisis.