15 Bulgarians to Drop out of Iraq Unit

Politics | April 13, 2004, Tuesday // 00:00

Some fifteen Bulgarian soldiers have filed requests to quit Bulgaria's infantry unit in Karbala after a week of fighting with radical Shiites.

Amid mounting public pressure for Iraq pullout Defence Minister Nikolay Svinarov announced that the Bulgarian camp can be relocated some fifteen kilometers away from Karbala center.

No definitive decision on the issue has been taken yet, he added.

The minister is expected to make a report on the situation in Karbala to the parliamentary foreign policy, defence and security commission on April 22.

There are several requests from Bulgarian soldiers to return home. This comes as no surprise and may happen everywhere in the world where international missions are deployed, Foreign Minister Solomon Passy told private bTV channel earlier in the day.

He said that anybody who wants to return from Karbala is free to do so as the mission has been recruited on a voluntary basis.

In the words of the minister the Bulgarian infantry unit might be moved to another camp, should tension in the region escalate.

Sixty-two Bulgarian soldiers dropped out of the 480-strong replacement unit following the attack in the city of Karbala on December 27 last year, which wounded twenty-six and killed five Bulgarian soldiers, the country's first fatalities in Iraq.

The Bulgarian troops have been deployed in Iraq as part of the Polish-led multinational contingent.

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