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Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Prime minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown announced during his trip to Baghdad, Iraq, that his government will be withdrawing at least one thousand British troops from Iraq by the end of 2007. Brown also plans to gradually hand over control of Basra to Iraq security forces in accordance with the withdrawal.
"What we propose to do over these next few months is to move from a situation where we have a combat role to an over-watch role. Hopefully they will be home by Christmas," said Brown.
There are approximately 5,500 British troops in Iraq, with most of them located in and around Basra.
The reduction agreement was reached between Brown, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Barham Saleh and General David Petraeus of the U.S. Army in Iraq with the troop withdraw expected to begin in Basra.
Brown is expected to travel to Basra later today. British troops recently withdrew from the city to a nearby base, leaving security in the hands of Iraqi forces.
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This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
