Mongolians Return to Baghdad, This Time as Peacekeepers: "Mongolia's offer of troops surprised the American government because it had not asked Mongolia for help, said Steven R. Saunders, president of a private, Washington-based group promoting business ties with Mongolia.
Around this dusty city with its Cyrillic character signs left over from the Soviet era, Mongolians talk of supporting democracy in Iraq, of bolstering geopolitical ties with the United States and of returning their nation's long-eclipsed name to the world stage.
Mongolia is the only nation in Northeast Asia where there is widespread support for sending troops to Iraq: Russia glowers, China appears neutral and Japan has approved the sending of troops but begs for more time. South Korea has 650 military medics and engineers in Iraq, sent despite violent public protests. Now, in the face of American demands for combat-trained troops, South Korea is sending a study group.
Slightly more than a decade after the departure of the last Soviet troops here, democracy is not an abstraction for Mongolia. Last summer, Tibetan Buddhist priests working at a monastery here disinterred the remains of about 600 lamas, or high priests, each buried with his hands tied behind his back and a bullet hole in the skull. They were killed in 1937 by Mongolian Communists in an effort by Stalin to stamp out Mongolia's historic religion.
'Words are not enough to fight with terrorism,' Prime Minister Nambaryn Enkhbayar of Mongolia said in an interview last week, fresh from welcoming delegates from 118 countries classified as new or restored democracies.
Mongolia is rapidly embracing the United States in an effort to develop a balance to its historically dangerous neighbors, China and Russia. Twice the size of Texas, but with only 2.4 million people, this land of nomadic herders has a deep, if rarely voiced, fear of becoming another Tibet. After centuries of Chinese rule, Mongolia won independence only in 1921 with Soviet support."
Around this dusty city with its Cyrillic character signs left over from the Soviet era, Mongolians talk of supporting democracy in Iraq, of bolstering geopolitical ties with the United States and of returning their nation's long-eclipsed name to the world stage.
Mongolia is the only nation in Northeast Asia where there is widespread support for sending troops to Iraq: Russia glowers, China appears neutral and Japan has approved the sending of troops but begs for more time. South Korea has 650 military medics and engineers in Iraq, sent despite violent public protests. Now, in the face of American demands for combat-trained troops, South Korea is sending a study group.
Slightly more than a decade after the departure of the last Soviet troops here, democracy is not an abstraction for Mongolia. Last summer, Tibetan Buddhist priests working at a monastery here disinterred the remains of about 600 lamas, or high priests, each buried with his hands tied behind his back and a bullet hole in the skull. They were killed in 1937 by Mongolian Communists in an effort by Stalin to stamp out Mongolia's historic religion.
'Words are not enough to fight with terrorism,' Prime Minister Nambaryn Enkhbayar of Mongolia said in an interview last week, fresh from welcoming delegates from 118 countries classified as new or restored democracies.
Mongolia is rapidly embracing the United States in an effort to develop a balance to its historically dangerous neighbors, China and Russia. Twice the size of Texas, but with only 2.4 million people, this land of nomadic herders has a deep, if rarely voiced, fear of becoming another Tibet. After centuries of Chinese rule, Mongolia won independence only in 1921 with Soviet support."
Comments