Agence France-Presse,
PRAGUE: The Czech Republic will donate guns and military uniforms to Iraq “to help the country protect its cultural heritage”, according to an agreement signed by the two countries on Monday.
The 1,500 discarded submachine guns, 50 machine guns and 1,500 military uniforms are worth around one million koruna (34,000 euros, 41,000 dollars), Czech Defence Minister Karel Kuehnl told Czech news agency CTK.
Iraq's ambassador to the Czech Republic, Zia Hadi Mahmood Dabas, told journalists the weapons and uniforms were mainly for humanitarian, not military, purposes and would provide moral support to the Iraqi people.
“You cannot measure the value of this contract, it is a huge moral support to the Iraqi nation,” he told journalists.
The ambassador said that Iraq's cultural sites dating back thousands of years badly needed military protection as many were looted and damaged after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Czech government has already earmarked 78 million dollars (65 million euros) for the reconstruction of Iraq. The money has been used to finance humanitarian aid, the operation of a Czech field hospital in Basra, the training of Iraqi police, and more recently cultural heritage protection.
