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China training Afghans, Iraqis in mine clearance

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-15 15:22

BEIJING: About 40 military officers from Iraq and Afghanistan are learning mine-clearing techniques in China.

It is the first known time China has offered such training.

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Although the training is taking place at a military facility in the eastern city of Nanjing, China is portraying the course as a kind of civilian humanitarian assistance, Xinhua News Agency said in a brief report Tuesday.

The course "showed that the Chinese government attached great importance to friendly cooperative relations with Afghanistan and Iraq," Xinhua said, citing China's Foreign Ministry.

"It also showed the positive attitude of the Chinese government to assist the two countries' economic recovery and social reconstruction," the report said.

China opposed the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and it has remained aloof from international operations in Afghanistan, choosing instead to focus on bilateral political ties with its neighbor.

China has long been wary of foreign military entanglements, but it has taken an increasing role in United Nations peacekeeping operations in recent years. China this year also sent ships to conduct anti-piracy patrols off the Somali coast, in its first overseas naval combat mission of the modern era.