WARSAW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th January, 2020) Polish military personnel will stay in Iraq, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Tuesday, after the cabinet met to discuss the Iraqi parliament's demand for foreign troops to leave.
"We discussed this today and yesterday with the NATO secretary-general and decided to stay put," the minister said in Warsaw.
President Andrzej Duda assured reporters that the lives of 200 Polish soldiers as well as civilians who are now in Iraq were not at risk following the recent flare-up in the region.
"There is nothing at present that would indicate that what is happening in the middle East poses a threat to our soldiers and citizens," he said.
The Iraqi parliament obligated the government on Sunday to order foreign troop pullout after a US drone strike killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and a deputy head of the Iraqi militia.
The already-strained US-Iranian relations have been teetering on the edge of a conflict, with both countries swearing revenge and counter-reprisals despite international calls for restraint.
