By IRNA
Berlin : The Polish government will boost its military contingent by sending 400 additional soldiers to war-stricken Afghanistan by late April or early May 2008, Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Kilch was quoted as saying in Warsaw on Friday.
The deployment of new troops, which also includes eight combat helicopters, has yet to be approved by President Lech Kaczynski.
Under the Polish constitution, the president as head of state has the power to order a deployment of troops, but the government is free to decide on a withdrawal.
There are presently 1,200 Polish soldiers serving in Afghanistan as part of the 38,000-strong NATO-led International Assistance Security Force (ISAF).
Most of the Polish forces are based in Kabul, Bagram and southeastern Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Kilch expressed fears that the murder of Pakistani opposition head Benazir Bhutto could lead to a political
destabilization in Pakistan which could negatively affect the security situation in the whole region, including Afghanistan.
Support among Poles for the Afghanistan military mission has steadily declined in recent months, according to various polls.
Poland’s new government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced earlier that it plans to withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of October 2008.
Bringing Poland’s 900 troops home from Iraq was a main election campaign pledge of Tusk’s liberal Civic Platform party, which routed the ex-ruling Law and Justice party in October’s parliamentary polls.
According to Polish news reports, some of the Iraq-based Polish forces could be transferred to war-rigged Afghanistan.