Germany grateful to Georgian soldiers
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, November 14
The Foreign Ministry of Germany has released a special statement, where it thanked Georgian soldiers serving in Afghanistan for their major effort to repulse attack on the German Consulate in war-torn Mazar-i-Sharif city of Afghanistan on November 10.
The Consulate staff was found safe after a suicide bomber rammed a truck into the Consulate building.
The incident left six civilians dead and 120 others injured.
The German statement said security forces of Afghanistan and Georgian soldiers serving in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Resolute Support Mission played a key role to repulse the attack.
The Foreign Ministry stressed it was thankful for “braveness and devoutness” of Georgian troops.
Next day, German Foreign Minister Frank- Walter Steinmeier phoned Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili and thanked him for the activities of the Georgian soldiers.
For his part, Kvirikashvili underlined that such incidents “strengthened relations between the states”.
In the conversation, Steinmeier congratulated the Prime Minister for the victory of the country’s ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party in last month’s Parliamentary Elections and wished the success to the country’s new Parliament and Government.
Steinmeier also stressed “he would spare no efforts” for Georgia to timely obtain visa-free travel in the European Union’s Schengen Zone.
Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that no Georgian soldier had been killed or injured in the process of repulsing the attack, which left the part of the German Consulate heavily damaged.
Georgia is the largest non-NATO contributor to the Resolute Support mission, with 885 troops.
The Resolute Support mission was a follow-on task from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission, to which Georgia contributed about 750 troops.
