All Italian troops to be pulled out by year end!

Prodi confident the US will understand Italy's troop withdrawal from Iraq

Fri Jun 16, 2:20 AM ET

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The United States is not happy about the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq but will accept the decision when it is fully explained to them, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said here.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema was to meet his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice in Washington later Friday and the issue was bound to be high on the agenda after Italy began Wednesday a further reduction of its troop strength in Iraq, which will be down to 1,600 men by the end of June.

The whole of the Italian contingent, once the fourth largest in Iraq, will be pulled out by the end of the year in line with a pledge by new prime minister Prodi.

Prodi's predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, strongly backed the US-led war in Iraq, and sent some 3,200 men to the southern Nasiriyah region. They were slimmed down in September 2005 and again in January this year.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060616/pl_afp/italyiraqtroopswithdraw_060616055841