Latvia Stops Training Iraqi Security Forces Amid Escalated Tensions - Defense Ministry

RIGA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th January, 2020) Latvian troops stopped training with Iraqi security forces in the wake of escalated regional tensions, Defense Ministry spokesman Kaspars Galkins said.

"Latvian soldiers in Iraq stopped instructing Iraqi security forces and training with them," Galkins told journalists on Monday.

Latvian troops were sent to Iraq in 2016.

There are currently six instructors serving with the Danish contingent at a joint US-Iraqi military base located 160 kilometers (99 miles) from Baghdad.

The situation in the middle East in general, and in Iraq in particular, became tense on Friday when strikes by US drones in Baghdad took the lives of Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, who led the Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force.

Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks supported US actions on the same day.