The government plans to send peacekeeping troops to earthquake-devastated Haiti next week at the earliest, government officials said Friday.
The National Assembly foreign affairs committee will vote on a motion on the planned dispatch Monday. If passed, it will go before an Assembly plenary session by the middle of next week for final approval, parliamentary sources said.
Officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the dispatch of peacekeepers will come as soon as the Assembly approves the motion.
On Jan. 19, the United Nations adopted a resolution calling for urgent assistance for the earthquake-hit nation.
The motion calls for sending up to 250 troops, mostly engineers, to the Caribbean country, hit by the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake Jan. 12. About 200,000 people were killed, according to reports.
The unit will be stationed in Leogane, a port city some 30 kilometers west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, said an official, who returned after a trip to Haiti for an on-site inspection.
Korea has pledged over $16 million worth of relief supplies in aid to the Haitians.