PRAGUE, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The Czech government on Wednesday approved a foreign military mission plans for Czech troops in the second half of 2018 and 2019-2020.
According to the proposal, the Czech Republic will maintain its presence in all current foreign operations. The existing mandate allows 806 Czech soldiers to participate in foreign missions.
The proposal also suggests sending around 270 soldiers this year to Iraq, Afghanistan and Mali. Thus, the number should increase to 1,081 this year and 1,191 next year. In 2020, 1,096 Czech soldiers could operate in the missions.
As for the next year, the plan involves Czech army to guard the airspace of the Baltic countries. The enlargement of foreign missions would cost the state between 2.1 and 2.4 billion crowns (about 117 million U.S. dollars) per year.
"We want to carry out training and peacekeeping operations at their current places. Same as our allies, we want to increase our involvement within the main missions. I believe that the proposal will find support in Parliament," Defense Minister Karla Slechtova said.
Slechtova explained that a number of Czech soldiers should go to Logar to train a special unit of the Afghan police and to Herat province to help with the training of Afghan soldiers.
The Czech Army wants to have an additional unit in Mali in order to guard or accompany soldiers of the European Union at their training mission. The scale of the Czech engagement is planned to be extended to surrounding countries of the Sahel region due to the new EU mission mandate to start in 2018. A small expert team could also join a UN mission in Mali. This unit may have up to 30 Czech soldiers.
More troops should also go to Iraq, including a chemical unit. In addition, the Czech troops are waiting for a NATO statement that plans to launch their own mission in Iraq. The Czech units could then be involved in this mission and got strengthened too.
The proposal will be sent to the Czech lower house of parliament for approval.
