NATO agrees to expand presence

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) agreed on Wednesday to expand its presence in Iraq, sending more instructors to train Iraqi security forces, following an appeal from Iraq’s interim government, a NATO official said. “This is an urgent decision and so much needs to be done,” James Appathurai, NATO spokesman, told IRIN on Thursday from Brussels. During a visit to NATO headquarters, on 14 September, the president of the Iraqi interim government, Sheikh Ghazi Al-Yawar, called on the organisation for further assistance to help secure a safe environment for Iraqis to vote in without fear in the upcoming January election, in the light of the growing number of killings and kidnappings in the country. “We should help to support the Iraqi government to be able to provide for its own security by assisting in the training and the equipping,” Appathurai stressed, noting that the aim of the mission was training and not an offensive combat operation. Approximately 300 new personnel will join the NATO Training Implementation Mission in Iraq (NTIM-I), already operating since last July with 42 instructors, to create a large military training academy located outside the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, yet to be approved by the military authorities of Iraq, a NATO official told IRIN. The mission will train Iraqi military forces and high ranking officials. The governments of Spain, Belgium, Germany and France will not contribute personnel to the mission in Iraq due to political reasons, but will undertake training in neighbouring countries or in their own countries. “What everybody can agree to is that the faster Iraq can provide for its own security, the faster foreign forces are no longer necessary,” the NATO spokesman said, noting that the training mission was geared towards achieving that goal. However, France and Belgium expressed concerns over the funding of the academy, how it would be led and its own security.