The United States respects decisions made by its three European allies to pull their troops out of Iraq or reduce their numbers, the White House said Tuesday.

The Polish government said earlier in the day that its troops will stay in Iraq until the end of 2006 but the number should be reduced in March.

Also on Tuesday, both Ukraine and Bulgaria finished their troop withdrawals from Iraq.

"Typically, it's as we've said all along -- a country's decision on whether, or what level to support the mission in Iraq, either with troops or with money, or with other resources, is the country's decision to make on its own," said White House deputy spokesman Trent Duffy. "And we respect those decisions."

Currently, there are almost 184,000 allied troops in Iraq, 160,000 of them from the United States.

Source: Xinhua