Abstract from “The Cyprus Weekly”
September 22-28, 2000

By March 2001, it is expected that the Austrian contingent of UNFICYP will begin to leave the island of Cyprus. This retreat is mainly due to budget constraints and the need for Austria to provide troops for a European rapid deployment force scheduled for 2003.

The Austrians began their peacekeeping mission in 1964 with police officers and a then a field hospital. Since May 1972, when the first battalion arrived, they have controlled the eastern sector of the buffer zone in Famagusta.

Captain Andreas Scherer told The Cyprus Weekly that the Austrian contingent is expected to leave sometime during the summer of 2001. He also stated that it will be difficult for the soldiers to leave a country they have grown to love. For some soldiers it was a tradition, being that some of their fathers had served there before them.

According to a letter sent to UN HQ in New York, the Vienna government said the decision was influenced by the need for Austria to provide troops for a rapid European deployment force scheduled for 2003.

“The letter we received says the decision comes in the wake of a comprehensive restructuring process of the armed forces, linked to the EU demand for a European force,” UNFICYP spokeswoman Sarah Russell told The Cyprus Weekly.

According to The Cyprus Weekly the UN has already started the process of finding replacement soldiers which will most probably come from Hungary, Slovakia or Slovenia.

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