HUNGARY: Hungary's centre-left government has approved a US request to use a military base for training up to 3,000 Iraqi exiles to serve in a post-Saddam Hussein administration.
Officials said the Iraqis would also serve as translators, interpreters and guides for any international military action against Iraq, as well as helping set up a new civil administration.
"Today, the Hungarian government gave its approval to the US government's request, thereby contributing to the international fight against terrorism," Hungarian government spokesman Mr Zoltan Gal told reporters.
"The training is primarily theoretical, which means military and civil relations, interpreting and translating, and theoretical training for military police," he said, adding that Hungary had insisted that those trained at the camp should not be deployed directly in combat roles in Iraq.
Mr Gyorgy Keleti, head of the Hungarian parliament's defence committee, said earlier that the first of two 90-day "non-combat" training sessions would start next month.
Those put through the training would hold "some form of US identification", and would only have minimal military training, in the use of handguns for self-defence, Mr Keleti said.
Up to 1,500 US personnel would be housed at the camp to assist and support the training, Mr Gal said.
The Taszar air base in southwest Hungary has hosted US military personnel since April 1999, when US Marine aircraft flew support and reconnaissance missions from the camp during NATO air strikes against Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia.
Mr Karoly Szita, opposition mayor of Kaposvar, the nearest town to the Taszar base, has said he is concerned that hosting Iraqi opposition figures could make his town a terrorist target.
Defence Minister Mr Ferenc Juhasz has said the US military would secure the base, with additional protection from the Hungarian army, police and secret services. The Iraqi trainees would not be allowed to leave the base during training, expected to last several months.
Hungary's Foreign Minister, Mr Laszlo Kovacs, told parliament on Tuesday that the US would bear all the costs of the training programme.
Hungary, which joined NATO in 1999, has come under fire from its allies for failing to meet its military obligations.
Budapest has promised wide-ranging reforms of its military.
On Tuesday, the parliament approved sending a 50-strong medical team to support the UN-mandated international alliance in Afghanistan.
- (Reuters)