Czech troops may stay in Afghanistan until the end of 2014. Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra, who is in the United States on a working visit, said he would ask the Czech Parliament to extend their mandate by another 24 months, as their current mandate will expire by the end of the year. However, the opposition has criticized Mr Vondra for announcing his plans without a prior debate in the lower house.
Photo: Czech Army
The Czech Republic now has around 600 soldiers serving in NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, down from some 700 troops present in the country in 2011. The Czechs run the Provincial Reconstruction Team in the Afghan province of Logar, and the Czech presence includes a chemical and biological protection team, a unit which trains helicopter pilots for the Afghan military, a field medical team, as well as a special forces contingent. Their current mandate will expire by the end of the year which is why Czech Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra announced on Tuesday he would asked the country’s Parliament to extend the troops’ mandate by another 24 months. Speaking in Washington ahead of talks with US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Mr Vondra said training local units will remain the Czech troops’ main focus.
Alexandr Vondra
“I expect that in the spring I will ask the government and Parliament to approve another two-year mandate for our troops. Now I’m not ready to talk about numbers but I suppose our helicopters might yet go back there as our special units are only staying until the end of the year. I think we will keep focusing on training, that’s the most important thing because that’s the prerequisite for the Afghans to take care of their own security.”
The issue is likely to be a controversial one on the house floor. If agreed by the coalition government, the minister’s request should be approved by the Czech lower house where the coalition parties have a majority. But the opposition says Mr Vondra is giving Czech allies in NATO a carte blanche. Jan Hamáček is a Social Democrat MP and the party’s shadow defence minister.
Jan Hamáček
“We are very concerned about this statement. We think such important announcements should be made only after a thorough debate at least in Parliament. This wasn’t the case, and this is in a way a carte blanche given by Minister Vondra to our allies and the Afghan government. We would rather expect him to come up with an exit strategy for the Czech army from Afghanistan.”
At a meeting with the US Secretary of Defence in Washington on Tuesday, Minister Vondra would also like to finalize a deal that would allow Czech companies to compete for US military contracts.
