Salvadorean troops to remain in Iraq if necessary: president

Salvadorean President Elias Antonio Saca said Saturday that his country will extend its troops

' stay in Iraq if necessary, reports from San Salvador said.

El Salvador sent its third contingent to the southern Iraqi city of Hilla in August for a six-month mission, which will end in February, a month after Iraq's presidential elections.

Saca said the Salvadorean government will wait for the results of the January elections, and will decide whether to extend their troops' mission if the then Iraqi government and the situation need it.

El Salvador sent its first contingent to Iraq in August 2003. Now it is the only country in the Plus Ultra Brigade that keeps its forces in Iraq after the withdrawal in April of the troops from Spain, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

Saca justified the decision to extend the country's military presence in Iraq as a way to thank the international community for the signing of the peace agreements in 1992 that put an end to the12-year civil war in the central American country.

Source: Xinhua