SKorea to withdraw all troops from Iraq by end-2007: ruling party

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2006

SEOUL (AFP) — South Korea's government will pull all of its 2,300 troops out of Iraq by the end of next year, the ruling Uri party said. "The government reported to the Uri party that it will draw up a plan by the end of June to terminate the mission and wrap up the mission by the end of 2007," party spokesman Noh Woong-Rae told AFP.

South Korea in 2004 sent around 3,500 troops to Iraq, the third largest foreign contingent after the United States and Britain. The size of the force has been progressively cut since then amid domestic opposition to the deployment. Parliament must vote in December on extending the force's mandate. The Uri party, the largest in parliament, is demanding a pullout. The United States provides the vast majority of the total 160,000-strong...