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Rumsfeld wants to remove U.S. troops from Sinai; Egypt objects

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thurday, January 31, 2002

WASHINGTON Ñ The United States has resumed discussions of plans to withdraw military troops from Egypt's Sinai peninsula.

Israel has agreed, in principle, to a U.S. withdrawal. But Egypt has objected, saying a U.S. military presence is required amid the current Middle East tension.

Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "I just plain don't. And we're working carefully with our friends and allies in Israel and Egypt to see if there isn't some reasonable way that, after 22 years, we can modestly reduce some of those folks that are down there in the Sinai."

Pentagon officials said the United States would withdraw most of the peacekeeping force. No date for the pullout has been set.

U.S. defense officials said the Pentagon would review the prospect of a military withdrawal from the Sinai as part of a drive to reduce U.S. personnel in international peacekeeping missions. The officials said the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan has shelved the review.

The Pentagon review is based on the assessment that many U.S. missions abroad are no longer required. But officials did not say whether any decisions on redeployment would be taken in 2002.

"I do not believe that we still need our forces in the Sinai," Defense But the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Rumsfeld wants to reduce the number of U.S. troops stationed in the Sinai Peninsula to 26 from 865. The newspaper said the defense secretary intends to end flights of U-2 spy planes over the Sinai.

For more than 20 years, U.S. troops have been participating in an 11-nation peacekeeping force in the demilitarized zone that runs along the boundary between Egypt and Israel.

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