Cabinet approves new foreign missions’ bill

The government on Monday approved a new bill on the army’s foreign missions in 2009. The move comes after the lower house of Parliament in December rejected the government’s proposal to increase the number of Czechs troops serving abroad. The new bill envisages cutting back on the number of Czech troops, particularly in Afghanistan, in the hope that it will win approval across the political spectrum. Under the plan, a maximum of 480 soldiers would be deployed in the ISAF peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and up to 100 would take part in the US-led operation Enduring Freedom. The number of soldiers in the Provincial Reconstruction Team in the Afghan province of Logar would be 275. The soldiers’ mandate expired in December, but the government used its constitutional right to prolong the missions’ mandate by another two months, until the end of February.