Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on October 9 that he will submit a draft law to the Parliament which will ban the appointing people to official posts who refused to serve their military service and avoided undergoing training in the reserve forces.

President Saakashvili, who visited training fields in Osiauri, in central Georgia and Sachkhere, in western Georgia, where two reserve battalions are undergoing training at the moment, said that Georgia will train more than 10,000 reserve troops by the end of 2005.

“We do not need this reserve force for attacking someone. When there was a forest fire in Borjomi [National Park, in western Georgia, that raged on September 26] these servicemen [referring to reservists] helped to contain [the fire]. So these troops are very much needed in emergency situations,” Mikheil Saakashvili said.

He also slammed those, as he put it, “so called politicians” who have a nihilistic and skeptical stance towards the initiative to build up strong reserve forces.

There are 360 servicemen in each of the two reserve battalions which are currently undergoing training in Osiauri and Sachkhere. There are several Georgian parliamentarians in the battalion as well.