[www.ANTIC.org] Albania says troops will join war on Iraq

[Miroslav Antic]

Title: Message

Albania says troops will join war on Iraq

TIRANA, March 9 — Albania said on Sunday it would send troops to join any U.S.-led attack on Iraq, a largely symbolic gesture that underlines Tirana's gratitude to Washington for intervening in the 1999 Kosovo crisis.

 

Prime Minister Fatos Nano said the cabinet decided at an emergency session to contribute commandos and allow Albanian territory and airspace to be used for a war on Iraq that analysts say could start before the end of March.        ''Our military troops, though small in number, have made a respected name for themselves in peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Afghanistan. We are now de facto members of the coalition of progressive will and global peace,'' Nano said in a statement.        Both Albanian officials and the U.S. embassy in Tirana declined comment on whether the government was responding to a request from the United States, which says it will attack Iraq with or without United Nations approval.        Washington has run into fierce diplomatic opposition in its efforts to get the U.N. Security Council to give Iraq a March 17 ultimatum to disarm or face war.        Parliament has already authorised sending Albanian troops to the Gulf, but it is still expected to vote on the cabinet decision on Monday. Official sources said the government would then decide on the number of troops to be sent.        The Balkan nation of three million is eager to repay the United States for the NATO intervention that stopped Serb repression of ethnic Albanians in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo in 1999.
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