Georgia will send an additional battalion to Afghanistan next year, which will turn the country into the largest non-NATO ISAF contributor, the Georgian Ministry of Defense said on June 9.

The issue was discussed in Brussels during a meeting on June 9 between Georgian Defense Minister Bacho Akhalaia and General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Meeting of NATO Defence Ministers with non-NATO ISAF contributing nations was held in Brussels on June 9.

“At the meeting [Akhalaia and Gen. Petraeus] discussed the decision to send additional Georgian battalion to Afghanistan. Gen. Petraeus welcomed this decision,” the Georgian MoD said in a statement on June 9.

Georgia, which has 925 servicemen in Afghanistan, has lost total of eight soldiers since joining the ISAF mission in November, 2009.

Another issue discussed with Gen. Petraeus was a proposal to create a NATO-standard center to provide pre-deployment trainings for international operations, the Georgian MoD said.