Italy to reduce forces in Iraq

Parallel to the escalation of the acts of violence in Iraq, the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlyskoni said he is planning to reduce the number of his forces in Iraq to 300 before withdrawing them by the end of September this year.

In Ukraine, President Victor Lukeshinko said his country's forces will leave Iraq in mid October. Some 137 of 1300 soldiers of the total forces of Ukraine in Iraq returned back home by the beginning of March.

In Romania, the government denied on Thursday whether it will study the withdrawal, after the kidnapping three Romanian in Iraq. Several countries had actually withdrawn its forces because of local internal pressures and threats of the armed groups in Iraq.