Tony Blair has told Baghdad's deputy prime minister that Britain intends "to hold its nerve" in Iraq.

The prime minister on Monday held talks with Barham Saleh in Number 10 following a weekend of speculation that the UK and US is preparing to change course on the role of its troops in the country.

Defence secretary Des Browne has said he thinks withdrawal could begin in earnest within 12 months.

But Downing Street disclosed that Blair said that the Iraqi government will get the support it needs as it builds up its own security forces amid worsening violence.

"This is a process, not an event. We are not working to an arbitrary deadline," the prime minister's official spokesman said.

"We are working to the point where the Iraqis are capable of providing for their own security.

"We are still in the business of 'Iraqisation'." 

Speaking after the talks Saleh said it was important that the international forces in Iraq did not "cut and run".

But he added: "I believe come next year you will be seeing Iraqi forces in the lead in many of the Iraqi provinces."

Saleh also held talks with foreign secretary Margaret Beckett, who said later that one strategy for putting an end to sectarian violence could be to break Iraq up.

"That is very much a matter for the Iraqis," she told BBC Radio 4's World At One.

"They have had enough of people from outside handing down arbitrary boundaries and arbitrary decisions.

"There is no doubt that in the earliest stages, what they most need is unity and what they most need is to support their elected government because it is the best game in town, if not the only game in town.

"Everyone has been very keen to keep everyone together. But in the longer term, they have just set up a constitutional review.

"It is they, the Iraqis, who are conducting it. It is not for us to say 'you will do this' or 'you will do that'."