WARSAW, Dec 15 (AFP) -- Poland will provide the Iraqi army with weapons and equipment worth 236 million dollars, including helicopters and small arms, and train Iraqis to use them, officials said Wednesday (15 December).
Polish Deputy Defence Minister Janusz Zemke said some of the helicopters and other equipment currently in Iraq would be handed over to the Iraqis when the Polish troop contingent in the country is cut by a third in February.
His Iraqi counterpart Ziad Catan said 20 Polish-built Sokol and 24 Soviet-designed Mi-17 transport helicopters would be included in the sale.
Under contracts signed Wednesday Poland's Bumar group would deliver water and fuel cisterns, ambulances, grenades and sub-machine-guns next year, its president Tadeusz Baczynski said.
Zamke said Warsaw had also agreed to train 10 Iraqi helicopter pilots and 20 engineers.
Catan said other deals were still being negotiated, including the modernisation of Iraqi tanks and the sale of communications and radar systems.
The deals were agreed as three Polish soldiers were killed in Iraq Wednesday and four injured when their Sokol helicopter made an emergency landing south of Baghdad.
Catan said after arriving in Poland Monday with Iraqi military chief General Babekr al-Zibari that he hoped Poland would become Iraq's main arms supplier.
Poland has 2,500 troops in Poland as part of a Polish-commanded multinational force of 6,000 fighting alongside US forces against insurgents.
(Description of Source: Paris AFP in English -- North European Service of independent French press agency Agence France-Presse)
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