Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Tuesday that the Monday's attack in southern Iraq which killed an Italian soldier would not induce the government to speed up its troop withdrawal.

Addressing the House on the Monday evening attack which left one Italian soldier dead and four others injured, the center-left premier said that this will have no repercussions on the timetable for withdrawal.

Prodi, who won the Italian April general election, has said he will withdraw the Italian troops serving in Iraq by the end of the year, in line with a deadline set by the previous government.

However, some allies in his nine-party coalition are pushing for a swifter pullout, a demand which was renewed in the wake of the Monday attack.

But Prodi indicated he would resist their pressure, telling the House that "nothing has changed... all talk of a political plan aimed at conditioning the timetable is groundless".

He expressed his condolences for the attack, saying Italy was united in its mourning.

"The whole of Italy wishes to pay homage to those who have fallen in service and in the defence of peace and international stability, against a fanatical terrorism which spares no-one," he said.

The attack happened on Monday evening, as five soldiers of the Sassari infantry regiment were aboard one of several Italian vehicles escorting a British convoy on the road to Tallil near Nassiriya, the southern Iraqi town where the Italian contingent is based.

The withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq topped the agenda of a meeting in Rome last Friday between Prodi and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

After the talks Prodi said that Italian and British defense ministers would soon meet to arrange details of the pullout. Italian troops in Iraq are under British command and so the withdrawal has to be closely coordinated with London.

Last month, Prodi condemned the Iraq war as a "grave error" which had created "new pretexts for terrorist actions".

Source: Xinhua