Print this page
Tuesday, 02 March 2004
GEORGIAN PEACEKEEPERS\' DEPARTURE FOR IRAQ AGAIN DELAYED
By empty (3/2/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
A contingent of 74 Georgian service personnel -- engineers, sappers, and medical personnel -- flew home to Tbilisi on 2 March after a six-month tour of duty with the international stabilization force in Iraq, Georgian media reported. But a further 217 Georgian service personnel who were supposed to replace them in Tikrit are unable to leave Georgia because of a lack of forms to apply for identification documents, Chief of the General Staff Major General Givi Iukuridze told Caucasus Press on 2 March. Iukuridze said no new date for the peacekeepers\' deployment to Iraq has been set.
A contingent of 74 Georgian service personnel -- engineers, sappers, and medical personnel -- flew home to Tbilisi on 2 March after a six-month tour of duty with the international stabilization force in Iraq, Georgian media reported. But a further 217 Georgian service personnel who were supposed to replace them in Tikrit are unable to leave Georgia because of a lack of forms to apply for identification documents, Chief of the General Staff Major General Givi Iukuridze told Caucasus Press on 2 March. Iukuridze said no new date for the peacekeepers\' deployment to Iraq has been set. The troops were originally scheduled to leave for Iraq last month, but unnamed Defense Ministry officials said the departure was delayed because the United States had not made transport aircraft available. (Caucasus Press)