The decision was adopted after heated debate, with 110 votes for and 53 against and 45 MPs abstaining.

Coming just days after the country suffered its 10th military fatality in Iraq, it provides for a reduction of Bulgaria's 462-strong contingent to 400 men in June, followed by a full withdrawal by December 31.

Defence Minister Nikolai Svinarov, who drafted the proposal for a withdrawal, on Thursday denied that Bulgaria was abandoning its allies in Iraq.

"This decision does not mean that Bulgaria is leaving the coalition. Negotiations about new forms of participation are under way," he said, adding that the country could help to train troops in Iraq and rebuild the country.

The current Bulgarian parliament's mandate expires in two weeks, and the decision could be reviewed by the new legislature following general elections on June 25.

But it seems unlikely it will be reversed as opinion polls show that the Bulgarian Socialist Party enjoys the support of most voters.

The party has vowed to withdraw the troops from Iraq immediately if it were to win the elections, and on Thursday, in a counter proposal to the government's, called for a full pullout by March 31.

The deployment in Iraq has been hugely unpopular with the Bulgarian public, with a recent opinion poll showing that some 70 percent of people wanted the troops withdrawn.

The centre-right government of Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg has been under pressure from the opposition and the press to do so for than a year.

But on Thursday the Socialists said the government's move to take a decision on the matter now was mere "populism" with an eye to the elections next month.

The public outcry began in December 2003 when seven Bulgarian soldiers were killed in attacks by insurgents.

In March this year another died in a "friendly fire" incident involving US troops, which stirred tension with Washington.

On Tuesday a further two soldiers died in a road accident during a storm while en route to their military base at Diwanniya, some 150 kilometresmiles) south of Baghdad, where the Bulgarians are stationed under Polish command.

The government has been accused of failing to prepare its men properly for deployment in Iraq.

The right-wing minority on Thursday tabled a motion urging measures to ensure the safety of the Bulgarian troops for the remainder of their stay, but it was voted down.

Bulgaria's decision to pull its troops out of Iraq follows a general thinning out of Washington's European allies.

Spain and Ukraine, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Philippines have withdrawn their forces ahead of schedule.

Poland has cut back its deployment, Portugal and the Netherlands have ended their mandate and Hungary plans to do so by the end of the year.

US diplomats have for some time asked Sofia not to set a deadline for withdrawal, but the state department said in March the country's plans to do so was no surprise and downplayed it as more a matter of logistics and finances than opposition to US policy.

Six Bulgarian civilians have also lost their lives in Iraq.

These include two truck drivers who were taken hostage and beheaded last June and three pilots who died when their civilian helicopter was shot down in mid-April by Iraqi insurgents.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.