British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday that Britain would pull "significant numbers" of British troops out of Iraq within 18 months.

"I suspect over the next 18 months there will obviously be opportunities to draw down significant numbers of British troops because the capacity of the Iraqi troops will build up," Blair said when he faced questions from the House of Commons Liaison Committee.

"What we have discussed in government is how, as progressively the Iraqi forces are more capable of taking over individual provinces, we will withdraw," Blair said.

"If one's talking about substantial troop reductions, I think the Iraqi government are keen to get control of their own security situation," said Blair.

But British forces would remain in the country for as long as the Iraqi government wished them to, Blair stressed.

Last month, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's announced that Iraqi security would be transferred from the coalition forces to the Iraqi troops in July and the first province would be the southern province of al-Muthanna.

On June 20, visiting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in London that Iraqi southern Maysan will be the next province to be handed over to Iraqi security forces.

"This will definitely allow the British forces there to be redeployed and hopefully we have our own plans to accelerate this process," said Zebari.

"By the end of the year we hope that the Iraqi forces will be able to take more and more control of the security situation," Zebari said.

Currently, Britain has some 7,200 troops in southern Iraq, of which about 800 in Maysan province.

Source: Xinhua