Poland and Belgium ready to send troops to help French Army in Central African Republic 2112133

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Poland and Belgium to send troops in Central African Republic

 
Saturday, December 21, 2013 06:33 AM
 
Poland and Belgium ready to send troops to help French Army in Central African Republic.
Poland has agreed to send 50 troops to offer logistics and technical aid to France's operation in the Central African Republic (CAR), media reports say. Belgium has also agreed to send 150 soldiers, but Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo told reporters that today the country was only sending two transport planes and “for the moment, there is nothing else.”
     
Poland has agreed to send 50 troops to offer logistics and technical aid to France's operation in the Central African Republic (CAR), media reports say. Belgium has also agreed to send 150 soldiers, but Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo told reporters that today the country was only sending two transport planes and “for the moment, there is nothing else.”
Over the past week France has sent 1,600 soldiers to the Central African Republic as an advance guard for African troops who, helped logistically by the United States, are assigned to restore order.
     

"I want to state very precisely that this aid is logistic and technical and will concern air transport," Xinhua reported, citing Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in a press conference following the EU summit in Brussels.

The decision was taken due to France's strategic partnership with Poland, especially in the defence area, he added.

France has been asking for help from its European partners to bolster its peacekeeping mission in CAR. It has deployed 1,600 troops to the African country to prevent escalating bloodshed between Muslim and Christian rebels that has left hundreds of people dead and forced thousands others to flee the capital.

The European Union will decide in January 2014 on a joint operation in the Central African Republic in support of a French military intervention to stabilise a country racked by sectarian violence, French President Francois Hollande said on Friday.

Hollande said he had persuaded other leaders at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday to agree to a rethink of how the bloc funds its overseas operations, and more pressingly, on whether to authorize such an operation for the Central African Republic.