Zaoralek, shadow foreign minister and lower house deputy chairman, said the cabinet acted at variance with the constitution by concealing the information from deputies. The Chamber of Deputies decided to deploy 100 soldiers from a special forces unit in Prostejov, south Moravia, to Afghanistan, on Wednesday afternoon, while the information about the tragic incident in Afghanistan was released in the early evening hours on the same day. The vote on the mission was dramatic as three deputies from the junior government parties, Olga Zubova, Vera Jakubkova (both Greens, SZ) and Ludvik Danes suspected of robbery to be taken to homeland from CzechRep ...
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France to boost its Afghan forces ... Hovorka (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL), voted against it. The government, which has only 100 seats in the 200-seat lower house, did not have enough votes to push the proposal through first.
However, some CSSD deputies supported the proposal in the second vote, so the Chamber passed the Afghan mission in the end. The Senate approved the government proposal to reinforce the Afghan mission earlier. The Czech troops will fulfil combat tasks under U.S. command in Afghanistan. CSSD chairman Jiri Paroubek said the CSSD deputies did not pledge to vote unanimously on the Afghan mission. However, he added, the lower house could postpone the vote until next Tuesday to have all available information. "We would primarily like to know the truth," Paroubek said. Zaoralek admitted that the report on the incident in Afghanistan would probably not influence the vote. In spite of it, the CSSD deputies' group will demand that the government submit a precise time schedule concerning the incident, he added. Zaoralek also said the government should have a clearer foreign policy strategy. Afghanistan is becoming a more and more problematic locality over which military troops are losing control and the aim and meaning of the Afghan mission is not completely clear any more, Zaoralek pointed out. "The Czech Republic cannot be just a logistic-technical base from which we will supply soldiers at anybody's request," Zaoralek argued.
(Ceske Noviny)
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