Georgia will cut troop strength from 2,000 to 300 by June

Above: Georgian Army soldiers from the 22nd Light Infantry Battalion, 2nd Brigade, muster before their battalion commander to commemorate Georgian Independence Day at Forward Operating Base Union last year

Ex-Soviet Georgia will cut its troops in Iraq to less than a quarter of the current contingent by next June, the defence minister said on Friday.

"The Georgian contingent is being reduced to around 300 servicemen from 2,000," Defence Minister David Kezerashvili told journalists.

"We had an original agreement with the United States that we would cut our military contingent in Iraq in summer 2008."

Georgia, a tiny Caucasus nation which is a close U.S. ally and is seeking membership of NATO and the European Union, boosted its military force in Iraq from 850 to 2,000 earlier this year.

Read the rest at Reuters/Atlernet

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