Slovenia will increase the number of its participants in the NATO peace-keeping mission in Afghanistan, while its position on Iraq remains unchanged - no soldiers will be sent there. This is what Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday.
"Slovenia has said that it will not send soldiers to Iraq and it won't. This will not change; I will not propose that; this is not an issue," said Rupel. He added that there would come a time when reservations that Slovenia has over sending soldiers who work for NATO to Iraq will have to be discussed. "But for now a ban is in place," he said.
As for Afghanistan, Slovenia participates in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) with a reconnoitering party, a firefighting unit at the Kabul airport and officers in the command, i.e. a total of 22 people.
These units will remain in the mission, said Rupel, adding that Slovenia will strengthen its participation in ISAF next year by sending another five firefighters and two vets who will be working in one of the country's sanitary units.
Slovenia is also participating in the NATO-led international peace-enforcement force in Kosovo, KFOR, with 34 soldiers. It has sent by far the biggest number of soldiers, about 200, to the peace-keeping mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was handed over from NATO to the EU on 2 December.
Rupel welcomed the announcement of a visit by US President George Bush to the EU and NATO in Brussels on 22 February, as he is convinced that this will start a new phase of trans-Atlantic relations. He said that the improvement of trans-Atlantic relations was one of the objectives written down in the coalition agreement of the new Slovenian government.
Rupel also told the press that he called for stronger relations of NATO, the EU and the OSCE with Ukraine at the meeting. As the debate turned to the Balkans, Rupel addressed the discrepancy between European and local interests, particularly in the case of Kosovo.
On the sidelines of the session, Rupel held talks with the new Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, and new Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, whom Rupel invited to pay a visit to Slovenia. Fini is to visit Ljubljana in February.
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