The Iceland Crisis Response Unit (ICRU) or Íslenska Friðargæslan, is a 30-person unit with a capacity roster of up to 200 people operated by the Icelandic Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is primarily designated for peacekeeping operations and was established in the 1990s to improve the status of Iceland within NATO as it lacked sufficient armed forces to support NATO peacekeeping operations. That role later evolved into providing an appropriate forum for deploying personnel within other organizations such as with OSCE field missions as well as with UN organizations such as UNIFEM, UNRWA and UNICEF.
The ICRU has been deployed to the former territories of Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Afghanistan through NATO missions and UNIFEM and to the Middle East and North Africa with UNICEF, UNRWA and UNHCR. It had a civilian observer mission in Sri Lanka in co-operation with Norway (previously a Nordic mission) and has explosive ordnance disposal personnel from the Icelandic Coast Guard to Lebanon and Iraq.
Iceland deployed its first peacekeepers in 1950, when two Icelandic policemen were sent to Palestine as a part of an UN peacekeeping operation. Though many Icelandic specialists have taken part in various peacekeeping operations since, mostly within the UN and its organizations but also within NATO, it was not until the 1990s that organized participation in peacekeeping operations was initiated, formalized with the establishment of the ICRU in 2001.
Read more about Iceland Crisis Response Unit: Personnel, Operations, Intelligence Gathering, Controversy
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