A total of 312 Honduran soldiers have left Iraq and are awaiting their eventual trip home at the US military's Virginia Base in Kuwait, Honduran Defense Minister Federido Breve said Wednesday.

"We expect our soldiers back on Honduran soil by the end of this month," the minister told reporters.

Honduras said on April 20 that it planned to bring home within two months its troops, which were deployed in Najaf last August, following Spain's decision to bring its Iraq soldiers home.

Spain, which has ordered home all of its 1,400 soldiers in Iraq,has been in charge of other troops there from the Spanish-speakingnations El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

Nicaragua brought its troops home in February as part of a rotation and said recently it would only send them back as part ofa United Nations peace mission.

El Salvador has said it will keep its soldiers in Iraq until their scheduled return in August but has yet to say whether they will be replaced.

The Dominican Republic announced last month that it will pull its 300 soldiers out of Iraq.

Source: Xinhua