Prague, March 22 (CTK) – The Czech Republic may send ten military doctors and medical material to northern Iraq at the request of Iraqi Kurds fighting Islamic State, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Tuesday, citing officials from the Defence Ministry.
The Iraqi Kurds, who actually have their own state in the north of Iraq, have asked Prague for sending in medical staff. The Kurdish prime minister even addressed his Czech counterpart Bohuslav Sobotka in this respect, the paper writes.
At present, the Czechs cannot afford to send a whole military hospital to the region, but they are considering the deployment of ten doctors who would also bring in a supply of medical material, according to MfD’s information.
In January, Kurdistan was visited by Czech Deputy Defence Minister Jakub Landovsky. The partners he met on his official visit included Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, the daily writes.
Landovsky confirmed to MfD that negotiations are underway.
However, the preparation for a medical mission, including the staff’s security, would be extremely demanding, which is why the doctors could not be deployed before 2017, MfD writes.
If the government approved the mission, it would still need consent from parliament, the daily says.
“First, the government must internally discuss whether Iraq should be Prague’s foreign political priority, like Afghanistan, for example. What is the Foreign Ministry’s position on it? Military missions must be based on long-term plans,” the paper quotes military expert Frantisek Sulc as saying.
The Czech Republic has helped Iraq, or directly Kurds, several times already.
Last year, it sent ammunition and automatic assault rifles there, while 35 military aircraft instructors are to leave for Iraq this year.
Besides, Prague is pondering sending military instructors to Kurdistan to train local military instructors, a source from the Defence Ministry has told the paper, adding that the Kurds are also interested in military bomb disposal experts.
“We are discussing our further possible help to the Peshmerga units in the Iraqi Kurdistan…, such as the training of bomb disposal experts and military police, and also a certain form of medical support that would be both effective and sustainable,” the paper quotes Defence Minister Martin Stropnicky (ANO) as saying.
Prague’s decision making is far from easy because Czech military doctors have been on a long-term mission in Afghanistan, and further ones helped refugees in Slovenia this year. It is not sure whether the military will have further medical staff to send abroad, MfD writes.
The largest Czech medical contingent is in Afghanistan, where teams of doctors rotate in the missions in Kabul and the Bagram base. Twelve Czech doctors operated in Slovenia and one in Mali in recent months, MfD writes.
Rather than a medical mission, the sending of 35 aircraft instructors to Iraq is much more probable. They are to help train pilots and technicians operating the L-159 Czech-made combat planes, the daily writes.
