France to increase military presence in Tajikistan

France will increase its military presence in the airport of Tajik capital Dushanbe from current 120 to 250 this month, reports reaching here said on Thursday.

According to the Interfax news agency, French military attache to Tajikistan Zherom Mallard said that the additional military personnel planned to stay there till September to October. Mirage fighter planes will also be sent to the Dushanbe airport.

Mallard stressed that Paris has reached agreements with the Tajik government on the strengthened mission, but he refused to reveal reasons for the plan.

France sent the 120 military technical servicemen and two transport planes to Dushanbe in December 2001 to render technical and logistic support to the French troops in Afghanistan.

Source: Xinhua