Hungary Ready to Allow US to Use Airspace

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 17, 2003

Hungary Ready to Allow US to Use Airspace

Hungary is ready to provide its airspace to the United States in case of a war against Iraq, Hungarian Defense Minister Ferenc Juhasz said Thursday.

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Hungary is ready to provide its airspace to the United States in case of a war against Iraq, Hungarian Defense Minister Ferenc Juhasz said Thursday.

Juhasz told a news conference that his government has also given permission for up to 3,000 Iraqi volunteers and 1,500 US trainers to use Taszar military base in southern Hungary, the national news agency MTI reported.

Later this month, the first of these volunteers, united in their opposition to President Saddam Hussein, will arrive at the base to be trained as guides, translators and civil supporters in any military action against Iraq.

Hungary, which joined NATO with other former Soviet bloc statesin 1999, approved the US request to use the Taszar base for the training last month. The base, 200 km south of the capital Budapest, was used by US peacekeepers during the Balkan wars in the mid-1990s.

The United States has not made other requests to Hungary till now.

US Major General David Barno, head of the training program, told reporters on Thursday that volunteers were being recruited from around the world by Iraqi opposition groups with the assistance of the US Defense Department.

Iraqis in exile are estimated at well over three million, with the largest groups living in Jordan and Iran, and a few hundred thousand in the United States.

Barno stressed the Iraqis and other Arab nationals would not receive combat training and would only be equipped with small firearms for self defense.

Since the actual training is expected to begin at the end of Jan. or the beginning of Feb., the United States has geared up preparations for the training, and materials and equipment needed are arriving in succession.

More than 300 US military forces are at the base to keep security and logistic supplies. Hungary has also tightened its guard and patrol around the base for fears that Taszar would become a potential target of terrorist attack.

The United States is moving tens of thousands of troops to the Gulf to prepare a possible invasion of Iraq, which Washington accuses of secretly developing weapons of mass destruction.

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