Gordon Brown has made a surprise visit to Iraq, and has been holding talks with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and military leaders. The surprise visit comes ahead of a statement next week on Britain's involvement in the country.
Key aims are to assess the UK's goals in Iraq such as the holding of local elections and reconstruction, and gauge the prospects for troop withdrawal. Plans to halve UK troop numbers to 2,500 by spring were delayed due to violence in Basra at the end of March.
Mr Brown - whose visit was not announced in advance for security reasons - spent just under an hour in talks with Mr Maliki, then with his advisers. He then moved on to the presidential palace for a 20-minute meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
Mr Brown is also due to meet British troops serving in Iraq.
In his last visit in December he thanked troops for their work as he announced the official handover of Basra to Iraqi authorities. This week Iraq and the US called for an agreement on a "general time horizon" for the withdrawal of US troops. The call came after a video conference between President George W Bush and Mr Maliki.
The UN mandate covering foreign troops in Iraq expires at the end of the year. The US is negotiating a new bi-lateral agreement to cover their continuing presence, and Britain will have to do the same, said Jim Muir.