Georgia not to abandon plans for increasing the contingent in Afghanistan / Russian peacekeeper

Nino Kalandadze, Georgia's deputy foreign minister said that the government of the republic intends to increase the Georgian military contingent in Afghanistan.

Ministry spokeswoman has denied the information that the Georgian government began to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. She explained that "there is a process of rotation, where one group of soldiers returns home, and the other leaves to replace it."

Withdrawal reports for the first time appeared in the Resonance newspaper, which noted that despite the lack of official information on the reduction of Georgia troops within ISAF, aircrafts with Georgian military regularly come from the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

Currently in Afghanistan there are about 900 Georgian servicemen stationed in Kabul and the southern province of Helmand. This year it is planned to increase the Georgian contingent to 1,675 people. Note that after increasing the Georgian contingent, Georgia will be the most powerful country represented in this operation not being a NATO member. Georgian military are serving under the French and Americans command.

During the stay of Georgian soldiers in Afghanistan their losses amounted to 17 people. The last case of soldier's death occurred in July 2012: then in a Georgian hospital a soldier died after being wounded in Afghanistan and brought to treatment at home.

Meanwhile, the Free Georgia opposition party condemns the participation of Georgia in the ISAF operation in Afghanistan. "It is unjustified for our country to sacrifice for the sake of the U.S. imperialist goals, while the campaign initiators themselves are withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan," said the political secretary of the party, Tengiz Omanidze.

According to him, despite the repeated appeals of the opposition, the Georgian government has never answered the question why Georgia is involved in the military campaign conducted to protect the interests of foreign states.

In addition, the opposition parties operating in Georgia signed a joint declaration and appealed to the NATO command:

"We consider unjustified the participation of the Georgian military units in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan and, especially, increasing the contingent, because Georgia is not a member of NATO and, therefore, have no international military commitments to participate in such military missions. Our country's armed units participation in the Afghan mission for the Georgian authorities is a speculative article, and is used for personal support from the alliance member states in order to keep in place the authoritarian government, and this discredits the Western values among the population.

Saakashvili's government decision - to be represented in the Afghan mission with the most numerous composition among the states that are not NATO members - is caused by personal reasons and serves the illegal retention of power.

The opposition parties operating in Georgia and feeling responsible should agree on the need to stop the involvement of our military in this operation and submit for consideration a joint declaration of consent in order that this decision is taken directly by the NATO command."

Saakashvili himself explains the Georgian soldiers' participation in operations in Afghanistan by the need to "gain experience". "If the army has no military experience, such an army is imperfect, so the Georgian military, despite losses, must continue to participate in the NATO operation in Afghanistan. Already several thousand of our military have been "schooled by Afghanistan" and got the military experience from the world's best armies in this country," said Saakashvili.

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Georgia not to abandon plans for increasing the contingent in Afghanistan

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