Azerbaijan not planning to increase troop numbers in Iraq

AP Worldstream
Oct 26, 2004

Azerbaijan does not intend to increase the number of its troops
currently serving in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition, Foreign
Minsiter Elmar Mammadyarov said Tuesday.

“We don’t have the technical abilities to expand the contingent,
that is people who have received the corresponding preparations,”
Mammadyarov told reporters in Baku.

Azerbaijan has 150 troops deployed in Iraq, where they are serving
mainly as sentries and on patrols. The Caucasus nation and former
Soviet republic is the only predominantly Muslim country that has
contributed troops to the U.S.-led coalition.

Azerbaijan, which also has 22 troops in Afghanstian, is seeking
U.S. support in modernizing its military and resolving a territorial
dispute with neighboring Armenia.