"The contingent of 2,700 men will be reduced to 1,600 by the end of June. And by the end of the year we will have terminated our military presence" in Iraq, Massimo D'Alema told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.

Italy's new center-left government led by Prime Minister Romano Prodi has made the Iraq pullout one of its top priorities, but it had not divulged details of its plan.

"We are going to replace our military commitment by a civilian commitment and will support the Iraqi government as much as we possibly can in its arduous efforts to set up stable institutions," D'Alema said in the interview, which was posted on the German paper's website.

Under the previous right-wing government, which lost power in elections last month, Italy sent a contingent to serve alongside allied US and British troops stationed in Iraq following the 2003 US-led invasion.

Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had insisted the Italian troops were engaged in a humanitarian operation, but the claims did not convince the opposition and the effort remained vastly unpopular with the public.

Thirty members of the Italian military contingent in Iraq have been killed since their 2003 deployment.

Prodi, who campaigned on a platform advocating withdrawal, recently described the war in Iraq as a "grave mistake".

His office, in a statement to parliament on Friday, said the first items on the agenda of the next cabinet meeting would be "a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the financing of peace missions."

Prodi met with D'Alema and Defense Minister Arturo Parisi Friday to discuss the withdrawal but no statement was issued.

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