ROME - Italy began Wednesday a further reduction of its troop strength in Iraq, which will be down to 1,600 men by the end of June, the military high command said.
Spokesman Colonel Roberto Tomsi said that the last few hundred troops of the Sassari Brigade were on their way back to Italy, leaving only the Garibaldi Brigade in Iraq.
The whole of the Italian contingent, once the fourth largest in Iraq, will be pulled out by the end of the year in line with a pledge by new prime minister Romano Prodi.
Prodi's predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, strongly backed the US-led war in Iraq, and sent some 3,200 men to the southern Nasiriyah region. They were slimmed down in September 2005 and again in January this year.
Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema will discuss Rome's future policy on Iraq with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington later this week.
06/14/2006 15:42 GMT