Hungarian troops in Iraq will stay put unless the Middle Eastern nation's government scraps their bilateral deal, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th January, 2020) Hungarian troops in Iraq will stay put unless the middle Eastern nation's government scraps their bilateral deal, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Thursday.
A Shiite majority in the Iraqi government asked foreign troops to withdraw after a US killing of an Iranian general in Baghdad. The United States, which leads a coalition fighting the Islamic State terror group (banned in Russia) said it would not pull out.
"As long as the Iraqi government does not cancel the agreement, Hungarian soldiers will be in Iraq. If the Iraqi government were to end the agreement then we would withdraw," Orban was cited as saying by the cabinet's communication chief.
The Hungarian parliament allows up to 200 soldiers to be kept in Iraq as part of the commitment to the coalition. Many of them are stationed at the Erbil base, which was attacked by Iranian ballistic missiles on Wednesday.
The prime minister said that none of Hungarian soldiers were wounded in Iran's retaliatory attack that targeted the base for housing US troops. He stressed that Hungary was ready to "perform an immediate evacuation" if necessary.
