Slovak troops will start withdrawing from Iraq in the first half of January, the country's military spokesman Milan Vanga said on Wednesday.

The Slovak sappers, chiefly in charge of the bomb disposal in Iraq, will leave the camp Echo near the Iraqi town of Diwaniya to the south of Bagdad, and first move to the neighboring Kuwait, said Vanga.

He added that the second part of the contingent will leave at the end of January and the beginning of February.

The troops will finish their withdrawal by the end of February.

A total of 11 Slovak army officers will remain in Iraq after the withdrawal, who will help train the Iraqi armed forces, Vanga said.

Prime Minister Robert Fico's Smer-Social Democracy Party and the nationalist Slovak National Party, a coalition member, repeatedly pledged to withdraw the Slovak troops from Iraq last year. The decision of withdrawal was made last October.

Slovakia deployed over 100 non-combat troops in Iraq in 2003, with most of them engaged in dismantling land mines.

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)