Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has asked parliament to endorse the deployment of Ukrainian troops to the U.N. observer mission in the northern Golan Heights, a statement posted on parliament's Web site said Friday. Yushchenko asked parliament to officially endorse a decree signed last year by his predecessor Leonid Kuchma that cleared the way for more than 200 troops to join the U.N. mission that monitors the three-decade cease-fire between Israel and Syria. The Ukrainian soldiers would replace Canadian troops in a more than 1,000-strong deployment already in Golan Heights that also includes peacekeepers from Austria, Japan, Nepal, Poland and Slovakia. It is not clear when Ukrainian soldiers would leave. In December, the U.N. Security Council renewed the mandate of the peacekeepers in the Golan Heights through June. Ukrainian troops are also serving as peacekeepers in the NATO-led mission in Kosovo and in a U.N. Detachment in Lebanon.