Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki said Sunday that Baghdad and London would begin negotiating a security deal to decide the future of British forces in the country beyond 2008. “Iraq will appoint a negotiating team to discuss the future of British forces in Iraq,” Maliki said in a statement issued by his office after he met visiting British Defense Secretary John Hutton. The statement said Maliki stressed the importance of reaching a deal between Baghdad and London before the end of this year, when the UN mandate that provides a legal framework for foreign troops in Iraq will expire. In July British Prime Minister Gordon Brown indicated he wanted to cut the number of Britain's troop in the violence-wracked country but ruled out a timetable for their withdrawal. Hutton, 53, who took over the defense portfolio from Des Brown just over two weeks ago, said that he had brought his team to discuss the status of forces agreement between Baghdad and London. “We want, in the first months of next year, to see a fundamental change in our military mission in Iraq, moving towards an increased focus on military training and education as part of a broad-based bilateral partnership,” Hutton said in a statement. “We agreed to work together intensively to put in place, by the end of this year, a formal agreement in relation to the status of UK forces in Iraq which will underpin this change.” Hutton is responsible for 7,800 British soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, where they are fighting Taleban-led insurgents, and more than 4,000 troops in Iraq, deployed in one base in the southern city of Basra. Earlier this month Maliki told a British daily that British troops are no longer necessary for the security of Iraq and should go home. “We thank them for the role they have played, but I think that their stay is not necessary for maintaining security and control,” he was quoted as saying in The Times. “There might be a need for their experience in training and some technological issues, but as a fighting force, I don't think that is necessary.”
