RIA Novosti, Russia
Sept 22 2004

ARMENIA TO SEND DOCTORS & ENGINEERS TO IRAQ: FOREIGN MINISTER

YEREVAN, September 22 (RIA Novosti’s Hamlet Matevosyan) – Armenia is
willing to send military doctors and engineers to Iraq-but not before
parliament debates and approves the prospect, Vardan Oskanyan,
Minister of Foreign Affairs, said to the media.

Presidents Robert Kocharyan of Armenia and Aleksander Kwasniewski of
Poland signed a bilateral security cooperation agreement, September
6. It envisages an Armenian contingent of fifty-doctors, engineers
and drivers-dispatched to Iraq toward this year’s end or early next
year, to join Polish-commanded coalition troops.

The Armenian government determined to have a contingent in Iraq as
“Armenia feels part and parcel of Europe, however small and remote
from [a greater part of] Europe it may be,” said Serge Sarkisyan,
Defence Minister.

The Communist and Democratic parties are offering bitter opposition,
and qualify the prospect as “a dangerous headlong move”.

The government decision clashes with Armenia’s national interests and
undermines its security. Endangered the worst will be a 25,000 strong
Armenian ethnic community in Iraq, and all ethnic Armenians resident
in other Muslim countries, argue Democrats.

The Dashnaktsutyun political party, on the coalition in office, is
also alarmed with the decision to have an Armenian contingent in
Iraq.

The Armenian-Polish agreement is now for the National Assembly,
Armenian parliament, to ratify. The chance to dispatch peacekeepers
will soon come up for debates, says Speaker Arthur Bagdasaryan. The
matter concerns only a small force-by no means a large contingent, he
reassures.