British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday that British troops will continue to perform their duties to the Iraqi people and the international community after 550 British soldiers withdrew from Basra Palace.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today program, Brown said "this is a preplanned and organized move from Basra Palace to Basra Air Station."
Brown said that British forces would assume an "overseeing" role but could "re-intervene" if necessary.
"We are able to reintervene in certain circumstances. The purpose of this has been to hand security over from the British Army to the Iraqi security forces." said Brown.
"We will carry out all our responsibilities to the Iraqi people; our international obligations outlined in the United Nations," he said.
Brown said the number of British troops in Iraq would remain roughly the same, and insisted that they would continue their duties.
He would not confirm if this would mean an overall reduction in the number of troops in Iraq, saying that this would "depend on the assessment of commanders on the ground over the coming weeks and months".
Sunday night, British Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed that 550 British troops had pulled out of Basra Palace.
"Handing over Basra Palace to the Iraqi authorities has long been our intention ... We expect the hand-over to occur within the next few days," the ministry said in a statement.
"The Iraqi security forces want to take full responsibility for their own security and the hand-over is a step towards that goal," said the ministry.
The MoD said the British forces would now operate from their base at Basra Air Station and "retain security responsibility" for Basra until the full hand-over.
"UK forces will now operate from their base at Basra Air Station, and will retain security responsibility for Basra until we hand over to Provincial Iraqi Control, which we anticipate in the Autumn, but the final timing will depend on whether the conditions for hand-over have been met," the ministry added.
Basra is the last of five provinces in the British sphere of operations in southern Iraq yet to move to local Iraqi control. Britain's withdrawal from Basra Palace, on the banks of the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, was part of the process of handing over to Iraqi security forces. And it will be seen as symbolic as pressure mounts on Brown to announce a timetable for Britain's forces to pull out of Iraq altogether.
Britain, the U.S.'s staunchest ally in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, stations the second-largest number of troops, following the United States, in the battered country.
Currently, Britain has some 5,500 troops in southern Iraq. Since 2003, some 169 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
Source: Xinhua
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