Rights defenders want to insist that Georgian authorities withdraw Georgian peacekeepers from Afghanistan

The Centre of Human Rights plans to make a formal appeal to the Government of Georgia with a demand to withdraw Georgian troops from the international peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. This was reported by Ucha Nanuashvili, head of this NGO. According to his story, many politicians say in private conversations that they do not approve Georgian citizens' fighting outside their homeland, although they do not express their views in public.

"From the very beginning we were against participation of Georgian militaries in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In our opinion, nothing threats Georgia's interests there. We treat the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as US' occupation actions," Ucha Nanuashvili told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

In his opinion, the economic result of these wars were profitable contracts of American military-industrial enterprises, whose interests had been lobbied by George W. Bush as US president, while the political outcome was George W. Bush's election for the second term in 2004 and strengthening of the US Republican Party.

According to Nanuashvili, most of Georgian militaries had agreed to go to Iraq, and now agree to take service in Afghanistan willing to improve their material situation.

According to military expert Irakli Sesiashvili, regular soldiers have never been sent to Afghanistan or Iraq; only contract servicemen take part in military peacekeeping operations.

Koba Liklikadze, a journalist and a military expert, told in his interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that in the period from 2003 to August 2008 four Georgian soldiers were killed in Iraq.

According to his version, five Georgian soldiers have been already lost in Afghanistan, and three more injured; two of them lost legs and now undergo rehabilitation in a US military hospital stationed in Germany.

In her turn, Salome Makharadze, Head of Public Relations of the Ministry of Defence of Georgia, said that all the expenses associated with militaries' salaries are born by the Georgian state.