WORKS OF DEFENSE MINISTRY IN 100 DAYS

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Defense Ministry released on Wednesday a report about its works done in the last 100 days after the establishment of the cabinet for reforms. Accordingly, the Defense Ministry worked out the defense policies' proposals to be reflected in the 2012-2016 action programme of the government and submitted them to the Cabinet Secretariat of Government after having considered them at a meeting of the Ministry's Council. The Ministry's action programme on strategy and structural reform was drawn up and then approved by the #63 governmental resolution September 29. In accordance with the #4 governmental resolution, the military unit of the Guard of honor started to pay respect to the Monument of Chingis Khaan every Saturday and Sunday and to hoist the state flag on public celebration days. The 2nd military draft of this year took place in October natiowide in accordance with the Constitution of Mongolia, law on responsibilities of civil military and legal status of servicemen and the #76 governmental resolution. This year's draft involved about 70 per cent of military-age people. On occasion of the 850th birth anniversary of Chingis Khaan, the new servicemen took oath in front of the Monument of Chingis Khaan and Statue of D.Sukhbaatar. A working group has been set up to draw up a project called “Mongolian troops in the great construction” with aims to involve fixed-term and contractual military servicemen in the national great construction and to improve their careers. In a scope of this measure, a hundred servicemen will be trained in heavy vehicle driving courses in the first turn. A military aerodrome at a military unit of the Armed Forces, located in the city's Nalaikh district, will be changed into civil aviation object. On this matter, a working group has met two times under a leadership of Major-General Ya.Choijamts, the State Secretary of the Defense Ministry; Brigadier-General T.Dashdeleg, the Military Commander of AF's Defense against Air Attack; and B.Monkhjargal, a deputy head of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), to plan further works. International military field exercises for peacekeeping operations such as “Khaan Quest 2012”, “Selenge 2012” and “Nomadic Elephant 2012” took place. These exercises have attracted 1,000 military officers and servicemen from USA, UK, the Republic of Korea, Germany, India, Japan, Canada, Australia, France, Singapore and New Zealand, and observers from Russia and China. Mongolian peacekeepers left for Afghanistan to serve in the “Sustainable Freedom” peacekeeping operations in the country together with military forces of Germany. In addition, 143 servicemen and cadets are studying in military universities, schools and mid-career courses in Russia, China, Germany and USA. In accordance with contracts on rendering military-technical assistance, Mongolia received some units of techniques, shoes, a fully-equipped laboratory, vehicles and cars from Russia, Turkey, USA, the Republic of Korea, and Germany. A delegation, led by the Defense Minister D.Bat-Erdene, participated in the Defense Ministerial Session of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Brussels, Belgium. Moreover, the Defense Minister met with Ambassadors to Mongolia from Russia, China, USA, France, Japan and the UK. The Vice Minister of Defense also paid a visit to Afghanistan together with Fogh Rasmussen, the Secretary General of NATO. Within this visit, the Vice Minister established a cooperation memorandum with the Defense Ministry of the Czech Republic on October 9. In October, a delegation of Japan's Defense Ministry visited Mongolia and held negotiations on participation in peacekeeping operations and on improving capacity of the Armed Forces' Hospital. Furthermore, a delegation, led by the State Secretary of Japan's Defense Ministry Mr H.Kanazawa, paid a visit to Mongolia and met Mongolia's Defense Minister D.Bat-Erdene to share views on developing of the cooperation. Consultative meetings of military-technical cooperation and defense were held with Russia, China, Turkey, Germany and India. B.Khuder