Italian withdrawal from Iraq
Iraq-Italy, Politics, 1/20/2006

Italy has decided to pull its troops out of Iraq, and the US played down the importance of the Italian decision to withdraw some 1000 of its soldiers among its 2600 troops in Iraq by the fall of June this year.

The US said that the withdrawal of those soldiers complies with the objective of these forces, which are led by the US, to withdraw from Iraq.

The spokesman for the US state department Sean McCormack said that the Italians indicated earlier that they will take these measures for withdrawal and to ending their security, in line of the security conditions in Iraq.

This comes after the Italian defense minister Antonio Martino had announced in front of the defense committee at the Italian parliament his decision to pullout his forces from Iraq.

The Italian prime minister Silvio Berlyskony announced in 2005 that the withdrawal of the Italian forces will be completed within 2006. The Italian forces are the fourth in term of size among the coalition forces. However, announcing such withdrawal at the meantime may have links to the Italian elections in April. Worthy mentioning the Italian public opinion stood strongly against the war on Iraq.

Previous Stories:
  Green Party of Italy called for Italian troops pull out of Iraq   (11/25/2005)
  Ukraine, Italian forces in Iraq near leaving   (11/8/2005)
  Berlusconi: I tried to convince Bush not to go to war   (10/31/2005)

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