Eurasianet Organization
Sept 5 2004

ARMENIAN MILITARY GEARS UP FOR IRAQ DEPLOYMENT
Armen Zakarian and Emil Danielyan: 9/05/04
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL

Armenia will send a team of military officials to Iraq in September
that will prepare for the deployment of a small Armenian army
contingent in the war-torn country by the end of the year, a senior
official said September 3.

Deputy Defense Minister Artur Aghabekian told RFE/RL that the
delegation comprising commanders of the Armenian army’s special
peace-keeping battalion and U.S.-funded demining center will “take a
close look at the location where our contingent will be stationed and
ascertain on the spot the tasks which it will perform.”

“We expect that after the completion of all formalities the Armenian
contingent will leave for Iraq at the end of the autumn or at the
beginning of the winter to start carrying out its mission,” he said,
confirming that it will be made up of U.S.-trained sappers, doctors
and a company of military truck drivers.

The chief of the army staff, Colonel-General Mikael Harutiunian, said
earlier that a total of about 50 Armenian servicemen will be sent to
Iraq. Aghabekian revealed that the non-combat military personnel will
be based in the central southern region of the country administered
by a Polish-led multinational force. He said Defense Minister Serzh
Sarkisian will pass a relevant official note to his Polish
counterpart during President Robert Kocharian’s visit to Warsaw which
begins on Sunday.

The Polish government, which has 2,500 troops on the ground, is
facing strong domestic opposition to the military presence in Iraq
and is gradually scaling it back. In August Polish troops handed over
some of the zone they control to U.S. forces, including the restive
province of Najaf. More such handovers are expected next year.

Unlike NATO member Poland, Armenia did not back the U.S. invasion of
Iraq last year. Nonetheless, it decided in principle to join the
U.S.-led occupation force there shortly after the overthrow of Saddam
Hussein’s regime. Official Yerevan has said it is undaunted by
continuing unrest in the embattled country where deadly bombings and
hostage taking are a common occurrence.

Over the past year Iraqi insurgents have kidnapped scores of foreign
nationals in a bid to force their countries to withdraw troops from
Iraq or stop other forms of cooperation with the Americans. At least
25 of them have already been killed by their captors.

Among the victims are three Turkish truck drivers whose bodies were
found on Thursday. Seven other truck drivers from India, Kenya and
Egypt were set free recently after their Kuwaiti employers paid a
$500,000 ransom to the hostage-takers.

The planned Armenian deployment could also put at greater risk the
lives of thousands of ethnic Armenians living in Iraq. Like other
Iraqi Christians, they have been regarded as another potential target
of the Islamist-led insurgency since August’s wave of bomb attacks on
churches in Baghdad and Mosul. An Armenian Catholic church in Baghdad
was among five Christian worship sites hit by the coordinated
bombings that left 11 people dead.

The dispatch of the servicemen to Iraq will mark Armenia’s second
military mission abroad. Thirty-three Armenian soldiers and officers
began the first such mission last February when they joined the
NATO-led peace-keeping force in the breakaway Serbian province of
Kosovo. Aghabekian said they will return home and be replaced by
another platoon of the Armenian peace-keeping battalion in the coming
days.