Wellington, Dec 1 (IANS): The New Zealand government is likely to send defence personnel to Iraq for a training role early next year, Radio New Zealand reported Monday.

The government was considering a possible contribution to the fight against the Islamic State (IS) Sunni radical group in Iraq, involving defence force personnel, Prime Minister John Key said.

Key insisted that any joint training team would not participate in combat activities.

"But what is possible is that New Zealand joins up with Australia, as part of a training capability, it's not impossible that they could be badged as an Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) unit, but we're a long way away from sort of agreeing that," he said.

"Firstly, the Australians haven't made a formal decision to go into undertaking training, neither have we," the prime minister added.

"We haven't identified the place that we could train, and we certainly haven't made any decisions about a badged unit, but they certainly wouldn't be combat, they could be training if they took place," he said.