GNR return from Iraq

THE FINAL contingent of 127 GNR soldiers stationed in Iraq has arrived in Portugal. Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes greeted the men at Lisbon’s Figo Maduro airport last week. There are only two Portuguese officials remaining in Iraq, a major and a captain, who will stay in the English division in Bassorá, according to a statement from Major Tavares Belo from the GNR.The soldiers have been in Iraq since November 2003, integrated into an Italian peacekeeping contingent in Nassiriyah, in southern Iraq. The Prime Minister paid tribute to the men: “Without you, the country would not have been on the right side of history, on the side of those who want to see a free, prosperous and democratic Iraq.” Lopes said that the GNR had been fulfilling “a legitimate mission of the UN”.