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British Defense Secretary John Reid said on Wednesday that there were no loss of trust between Britain and Iraq after violence erupted in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Monday when British troops stormed a police station to rescue two soldiers who were arrested by Iraqi police.
"There has not been a fundamental breakdown in trust between the British government and the Iraqi government," Reid said at a joint press conference in London after talks with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari.
"There has been an incident in which we took action to safeguard our soldiers, and that is to be investigated by the Iraqis and by our Special Investigation Branch," said the minister.
"But that should in no way diminish the fact that... in the vast majority of exercises that are now being taken in counter-insurgency, the Iraqi security forces are working shoulder to shoulder with the British and the multinational forces that are there." Reid said.
"While we take what happened seriously, and I stand by everything that our commander on the spot did, don't let's take one incident like that and try to pretend that it reflects the whole of even the Iraqi police force," Reid said.
Jaafari said clashes between British troops and Iraqi police in Basra would not affect the relationship between the two countries.
"At this time, where there are forces in Basra and all over Iraq, such things are expected to happen. As for us, it will not affect the relationship between Iraq and Britain, and we hope that together we will reach ... the truth of the matter." Jaafari said.
On Monday, two British soldiers, who are reported to be undercover, were arrested by Iraqi authorities for firing at Iraqi policemen and held at a Basra police station.
After the arrests, two British tanks sent to the police station were set alight in clashes between British forces and protesters.
Later, British forces conducted a rescue operation, using tanks to demolish a prison wall of the police station to release the soldiers.
Britain, a staunch US ally on the Iraq war, is positioning some 8,500 troops in Iraq, mostly based in the south of the country near Basra.
(Xinhua News Agency September 22, 2005)
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