Spain 'would consider' sending troops back to Iraq for elections
Spain would consider sending troops back to Iraq if requested by the United Nations, Spanish Defence Minister Jose Bono said.
“We came back from Iraq and we have fulfilled the mission. If the UN asked us to go to cover the elections, as in Afghanistan, we would consider it and we would take it to Parliament,” Bono told the private Telecinco television channel in an interview yesterday.
Fulfilling an election pledge, Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero withdrew 1,300 troops from Iraq as soon as he won the elections on March 14.
Zapatero’s government frequently has said the soldiers would not return to Iraq.
Zapatero pulled the troops out on the argument the invasion was illegal and lacked UN authorisation. His conservative predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, had backed the war, despite widespread public opposition.
Zapatero’s party won the elections three days after the Madrid rail bombings that killed 191 people, attacks that were blamed on Islamic militants and seen by many as revenge for Aznar’s support of the war in Iraq.
| Related Stories: |
|
