Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown answers questions during his monthly news conference inside 10 Downing Street, London September 4, 2007. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday that there were no rift between Britain and U.S. policy on Iraq, saying they were "on the exactly the same path" in Iraq.

"We are on exactly the same path ... which is that we will continue to discharge our obligations to the Iraqi people, that we support their democracy, and we will discharge our obligations to the international community," Brown said at his monthly Downing Street press conference.

"Just as the American government wish to discharge its obligations to the Iraqi people, we will continue to discharge our obligations," said he.

"Both of us wish to see a situation where the security of the different provinces of Iraq is taken over by the Iraqis themselves. We always recognized that this would happen at different stages," said he.

"Our policy is exactly the same: to make it possible for the Iraqi people to be responsible for their own security," added Brown.

In the conference, Brown said that the movement of British troops out of Basra city was a "preplanned" operation based on the security situation on the ground,

The decision to move around 500 troops from Basra Palace to Basra airport was taken in conjunction with the U.S. and Iraqi military, and British forces would remain responsible for security in the province regardless of the move and would continue to train Iraqi personnel, he said.

The transition from "combat" to "overwatch," where British forces will hand security duties to Iraqi troops and focus on providing services and back-up, had taken place in three other provinces under British control and would go ahead in Basra only when "the time is right."

"The very fact that this change from Basra Palace to Basra Air Station has been able to take place in an orderly way is a reflection of the greater security of the area," Brown said.

On Monday, Brown told BBC Radio 4's Today program that British troops will continue to perform their duties to the Iraqi people and the international community after 550 British soldiers withdrew from Basra Palace.

Brown said the number of British troops in Iraq would remain roughly the same, and insisted that they would continue their duties.

He would not confirm if this would mean an overall reduction in the number of troops in Iraq, saying that this would "depend on the assessment of commanders on the ground over the coming weeks and months."

Sunday night, British Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed that 550 British troops had pulled out of Basra Palace.

"Handing over Basra Palace to the Iraqi authorities has long been our intention ... We expect the hand-over to occur within the next few days," the ministry said in a statement.

"The Iraqi security forces want to take full responsibility for their own security and the hand-over is a step towards that goal," said the ministry.

The MoD said the British forces would now operate from their base at Basra Air Station and "retain security responsibility" for Basra until the full hand-over.

"UK forces will now operate from their base at Basra Air Station, and will retain security responsibility for Basra until we hand over to Provincial Iraqi Control, which we anticipate in the Autumn, but the final timing will depend on whether the conditions for hand-over have been met," the ministry added.

Basra is the last of five provinces in the British sphere of operations in southern Iraq yet to move to local Iraqi control. Britain's withdrawal from Basra Palace, on the banks of the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, was part of the process of handing over to Iraqi security forces. And it will be seen as symbolic as pressure mounts on Brown to announce a timetable for Britain's forces to pull out of Iraq altogether.
Britain, the U.S.'s staunchest ally in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, stations the second-largest number of troops, following the United States, in the battered country.

Currently, Britain has some 5,500 troops in southern Iraq. Since 2003, some 169 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq.