Poland will continue to scale down its troop presence in Iraq this year in hopes of possibly leaving by the year-end, President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Friday.

Kwasniewski made the remarks when meeting Defense Ministry officials. The future mission of the Polish troops in Iraq is to help train Iraqi forces, he added.

Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski echoed Kwasniewski, saying the Polish troops in Iraq responsible for security will be mainly engaged in training Iraqi forces.

Poland, a close ally of the United States in the Iraqi war, controls the south-central zone and commands a multinational force of around 4,000. Warsaw cut its contingent from 2,400 to 1,700 soldiers following Iraqi elections on Jan. 30.

Meanwhile, the defense minister told the Rzeczpospolita daily that Poland will reduce several hundreds of its troops with its next regular rotation, scheduled for July.

In a related development, General Chief of Staff of Polish armed forces Czeslaw Piatas said Friday that Poland will remarkably boost its troop presence in Afghanistan in 2007, which is made possible by the reduction of Polish troops in Iraq.

Piatas hoped the international peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan will be directed by the multinational force made up of soldiers from the Netherlands, Germany and Poland, noting the Polish will take the command of the force in 2007.

Source: Xinhua