Iraqi forces will take over control of county within a year: British official

Iraqi police and military forces will be ready to take over control of the country from U.S.-led coalition forces within a year, British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said on Saturday.

"I would have thought that certainly in a year or so there will be adequately trained Iraqi soldiers and security forces -- police men and women and so on -- in order to do the job," Howells told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Howells said he had been receiving messages that the Iraqi army "is coming along very well."

"I would be very surprised if there was not that kind of capacity taking on a lot of the work done by the coalition forces," he said.

However, Howells warned that a "big conflict" was looming between the Iraqi government and militia groups.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been under mounting pressure to set a timetable for British troops' pullout from Iraq.

Last week, the country's army chief Richard Dannatt called for a immediate pullout of the British troops, saying the British military presence in Iraq was provoking rather than preventing violence.

Britain has 7,200 troops in southern Iraq patrolling an area around Basra, a bastion of Shiite militias. A total of 119 British troops have been killed in Iraq since Britain joined the U.S.-led invasion three years ago.

Source: Xinhua