Entered into the database on Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 @ 08:06:42 MST
The United States had accepted Poland's plans to withdraw most of its 1700 troops
from Iraq at the beginning of next year, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski
says. Poland, one of Washington's biggest European allies in Iraq, runs a multinational
stabilisation zone south of Baghdad. "The current rotation in Iraq will be the last one. By the end of January,
we would like to pull the troops and replace them with smaller groups, which
could, for example, help train the Iraqi army," Kwasniewski told public
radio. Kwasniewski said his country's plan to make the shift ending its mission in
January the last one had been accepted by the allies. He said the move was the
subject of talks between Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski and US Secretary
of Defence Donald Rumsfeld on 19 July. Kwasniewski said he wanted to leave setting an exact withdrawal schedule for
the next government and president, to be picked in elections due in September
and October. The centre-right opposition, tipped to win parliamentary elections, has supported
Poland's presence in Iraq and accused the ruling leftists of pledging to withdraw
only to drum up its support ratings ahead of the polls.
