SOFIA - Bulgarian will decide later this month whether it will keep its troops in Iraq until the end of 2005, Defence Minister Nikolai Svinarov said on Sunday, after the eighth Bulgarian soldier was killed there on Friday.
"A decision will be taken before the end of March ... the question is to know whether Bulgaria will form part of the multinational force until the end of 2005 and how it will modify its participation in 2006," he told the private television channel bTV.
The government has to decide whether it will replace the contingent of 450 soldiers currently serving in Iraq in June, the same month in which Bulgarians are due to vote in national elections.
The opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party, which is leading in polls, has promised to withdraw the soldiers from Iraq if it wins the vote.
Svinarov said he believed it "would be totally inappropriate to end the soldiers' mandate now" because "we need to think of the pace of putting in place an Iraqi army and police force."
The chief of staff of the army, General Nikola Kolev, said on Sunday that in his view "the Bulgarian military presence in Iraq should be maintained until the end of the year," while adding that it should be "gradually downgraded."
A Bulgarian soldier was killed Friday in the south of the country while returning to base from a patrol, becoming the eighth Bulgarian to be killed while serving in Iraq.
Gardi Gardev, a machinegunner on an armored vehicle, died from multiple wounds suffered in an attack while Bulgarian troops patrolled the road to Baghdad in the village of Hamza, some 100 miles (60 kilometers) south of the capital.
Kolev said he believed the attack was not specifically aimed against the Bulgarian contingent, as forces trying to destabilise Iraq launched dozens of attacks every day but these were targetted mainly at the local security forces being trained.
03/06/2005 12:24 GMT