Georgia will send an additional 550 troops to Iraq next month, bringing the size of the small former Soviet republic's contingent to 850, an official said Sunday.
The troops are due to leave for Iraq in late February and will join 300 soldiers who began a six-month stint in November, Levan Nikolaishvili, deputy chief of the Georgian military's general staff, told The AP.
The government late last year announced plans to raise the number of Georgian troops in Iraq to 850 in 2005, but did not given a timetable.
In a statement late Saturday welcoming the Iraqi elections as a "historic event," Georgia's Foreign Ministry said some of the troops being sent to Iraq would help guard the U.N. mission there.
