The decision follows US President Barack Obama's announcement in October that US troops would go home at year-end.
NATO will end its seven-year troop training mission in Iraq at the end of the month, the alliance said on Monday, a move that will coincide with withdrawal of US troops from the country.
The decision follows US President Barack Obama's announcement in October that US troops would go home at year-end after talks to keep thousands there as trainers fell apart over immunity of US forces from prosecution in local courts, which Washington had set as a precondition.
A statement from NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the decision to end the NATO mission launched in 2004 was taken at a meeting of alliance ambassadors in Brussels.
"Agreement on the extension of this successful programme did not prove possible, despite robust negotiations conducted over several weeks," the statement said, while adding that NATO remained committed to future cooperation with Iraq. Rasmussen said NATO's mission to help develop a more sustainable, multi-ethnic security force had trained more than 5,000 military and 10,000 police personnel in Iraq the past seven years.
It also provided courses for nearly 2,000 Iraqi staff in NATO countries and more than 115 million euros' worth of military equipment and 17.7 million euros in trust fund donations for training and education at NATO facilities.
Rasmussen said NATO would continue cooperation with Iraq under an existing Structured Cooperation Framework. "We are determined to build on the success and the spirit of our training mission to further strengthen our partnership and political relationship with Iraq, so that together we can continue to contribute to regional peace and stability," he said.
US troops in Iraq are scheduled to leave by the end of the year when a bilateral security pact expires, nearly nine years after the US invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. US officials had asked for about 3,000 US troops to stay in Iraq, but the Iraqi government did not have the political capital to push any agreement on immunity through parliament.
About 200 US trainers will, however, be attached to the US embassy's Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq and 700 civilian trainers will help Iraqi forces train on new US military hardware they have purchased, such as F-16 fighters and Abrams tanks.
Violence in Iraq has fallen sharply since the height of the sectarian killings in 2006-2007, but a fragile power-sharing government still struggles to balance the interests of Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish political blocs.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom)
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