A senior Iraqi official said Tuesday that all non-U.S. foreign troops will withdraw from Iraq by the end of July.
"The Iraqi cabinet approved Tuesday a draft bill that sets timetable for withdrawal of the non-U.S. foreign troops from Iraq by five months for combat troops starting from January and seven months for the rest of the troops," Humam Hammodi, head of the Iraqi parliament's foreign affairs committee, told reporters.
According to the Iraqi constitution, the bill still needs the go-ahead from the parliament and then the approval by the three-member presidency council.
The cabinet draft was mainly to cover the roughly 4,000 British troops in southern Iraq.
Earlier in the month, John Wilkes, British foreign office spokesman told the state-run al-Sabah newspaper that his government was negotiating with its Iraqi counterpart to conclude an agreement similar to the U.S. and Iraqi security pact.
Wilkes stressed that the agreement should be completed before the current United Nations mandate for troops expires by the end of this year.
In July, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he wanted to cut the number of Britain's troops but ruled out a timetable for their withdrawal.
Source:Xinhua
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