Poland is planning to phase out compulsory military conscription and create a professional army by 2012, President Lech Kaczynski said on Friday, according to Reuters. A member of NATO and central Europe's biggest country, Poland has 150,000 soldiers in its armed forces, including 2,200 in international peacekeeping missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Bosnia, Kosovo and Lebanon. "To a large extent we already have a professional army and that level will grow in the next few years until the troops become fully professional," Kaczynski said during a meeting with soldiers in the city of Kielce. "This process should be completed after 2010, or around 2012," Kaczynski added. Earlier the spokesman for the General Staff said the Ministry of Defence and the President envisaged Poland retaining its 150,000 troops, but the core of the army would be 120,000 professionals. "The army will also include 30,000 (temporary) contract soldiers," said Lieutenant-Colonel Krzysztof Laszkiewicz.
