Britain will have a fighting force of 1,200 troops in Iraq when the number of military personnel in the country is cut next spring from 4,500 to 2,500, senior defence officials have said.

On the eve of the formal hand-over of Basra province to the Iraqi security forces, the officials rejected the claim by the Commons Defence Committee that the planned force would be insufficient.

The MPs said that there would only be enough soldiers left to protect themselves and their base at Basra airport. However, the officials maintained that if the Iraqi security forces needed help in an emergency, it would still be possible to deploy one battle group of about 600 soldiers and two battle groups, totalling 1,200 personnel, if there were a major outbreak of violence.

From tomorrow, however, it would be up to the Iraqis to deal with security problems and for them to call for assistance if they found they could not cope, the officials said. There was every confidence that the Iraqis would be able to handle all challenges.

The officials denied that the British were “walking away” from the problems in Basra, and insisted that the Iraqis had proved they were up to the challenge when there was an outbreak of violence in October, which they dealt with without British help. Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, urged other European countries to provide more troops for the campaign in southern Afghanistan – where most of the fighting with the Taleban is taking place – at a meeting of Nato defence ministers and military commanders in Edinburgh yesterday.

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