Italy has announced that it will be withdrawing all of its troops from Iraq by the end of this year.
Defense Minister Antonio Martino said the operation 'will be considered concluded at the end of the year, having definitively completed its mission.'
Italy presently has 2,600 troops in Iraq. Most are based in the southern part of the country. According to Martino, Italy will maintain a presence in Iraq but it will be a non-military one.
Martino said his country 'will gradually faze out in the course of the year, and another type of mission, substantially a civilian one,' will replace the troops.
The Italian troop withdrawal will occur in two major stages according to Martino with each stage scheduled to last approximately six months.
'For the first phase, the gradual transfer of tasks from (Italian) contingent to the Iraqi defense and security forces and the subsequent progressive reduction of the national military forces is foreseen,' Martino told Italian lawmakers on Thursday.
The second phase is scheduled to begin in June or July. Martino said it would involve 'ever wider civilian cooperation and a corresponding progressive disengagement of the (Italian) military contingent.'
Approximately 300 Italian soldiers would be leaving Iraq by the end of January with another 1,000 leaving by the end of June.
'By June 2006, we will have achieved an overall reduction of nearly half of the contingent. At the beginning of the second half of the year, around 1,600 men will remain,' Martino said.
The White House has yet to comment on Italy's decision to remove its troops from Iraq.
