Gordon Brown was urged yesterday to stand by Iraq and to resist calls to cut and run.

Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s Foreign Minister, said that the stakes were too high for Mr Brown to make a hasty and dramatic change to Britain’s military strategy.

He also gave a warning that any sign of weakness by the new Prime Minister would fuel the insurgency in Iraq.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Zebari said he understood that Mr Brown may come under pressure at home to distance himself from Tony Blair’s policy on Iraq, but argued that it was vital for Britain to “stay the course”.

Looking more widely at the status of foreign troops in Iraq, Mr Zebari said that a growing desire among Iraqi MPs for a timetable for troop withdrawal may call into question renewal of the UN resolution that mandates the presence of the US-led coalition in the country. The resolution is due to expire at the end of the year.

He also said that the Iraqi parliament had agreed to reduce a planned two-month recess over the summer to just a couple of weeks to give it more time to discuss constitutional reform and a new oil law, benchmarks that the United States is studying to see if its “surge” security plan for Baghdad is working.

Mr Zebari said that much had been achieved by British forces in southern Iraq, but more work remained to be done. It was important not to show any signs of weakness to militant groups that were active in the area.

“This is a time really to strengthen the international coalition . . . We hope the new Prime Minister Brown is also a friend of Iraq, of the Iraqi people, and will not make major or dramatic decisions,” he said.

“I think there is a feeling that he wants to differentiate himself from Blair’s era and the one contentious issue is Iraq. The stakes are too high really for all of us, so this is a time that we expect our friends in Britain, the British Government, to stand by us.”

Mr Brown has said that he wishes to visit Basra soon after he becomes Prime Minister to assess Britain’s Iraq strategy. Under current plans, the number of British troops is to be reduced initially from 7,200 to 5,500. Most personnel are to be withdrawn from bases in Basra and moved to the airport camp by the end of the year.

Mr Zebari said that Basra suffered from militias, organised crime and smuggling rings but was relatively free from the car bombs and explosions that are rife in Baghdad. “The situation is not hopeless. It needs better governance . . . The police force there is weak, the military is weak, the city council is not united,” he said.

The key for British troops to leave Iraq was to ensure that Iraqi security forces were available in sufficient numbers and adequately trained and equipped to take their place.

“Are we there or not, that is the question. By the time the British will make their decision whether to reduce, to draw down, that formula has to be correct,” he said.

Mr Zebari is due to fly to New York to address the UN Security Council on June 13 on the resolution mandating the presence of all foreign troops in Iraq under international law.

Growing calls by Iraqi MPs for a timetable that maps out when US forces will leave means, however, that the parliament in Baghdad may demand changes to be made to the resolution. “I will be making my Government’s position that we still need the continued presence of Multi-National Forces to help us,” Mr Zebari said. “The next review is coming up at the end of the year, which would be very critical because of the political situation.”

Mr Zebari said that all parliamentary groups agreed last year on the need for foreign troops to remain to help with security but some were starting to change their mind.

In addition, support from Britain and the United States for the deployment of troops was falling with the departure of Mr Blair and next year’s US presidential elections. “If you take all this, of course it is very significant,” said Mr Zebari.

He said that Baghdad was talking to Washington about the possibility of forging a long-term “security partnership agreement beyond 2007”.

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