SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria will not increase the number of its peacekeepers in Iraq to make up for a possible withdrawal of Spanish troops, a top military officer said yesterday.

Spain’s incoming socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to withdraw his country’s 1,300 troops from Iraq by July 1 if the United Nations does not take charge there.

Zapatero ousted Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who had backed the US-led war, in a surprise general election victory just days after a suspected Al Qaeda attack in Madrid killed 201 people. A claim of responsibility said the attack was retaliation in part for Spanish involvement in Iraq.

“We are not ready to deploy more troops in Iraq,” Bulgaria’s chief of staff Nikola Kolev told reporters.

“If Spain takes a decision to pull out of Iraq and other countries decide not to send more soldiers, there would be a redistribution of duties and a bigger work load,” he said.

The Balkan country, a staunch supporter of the US-led military campaign that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, last year sent a 480-strong light infantry battalion to serve in the Polish-led force in Iraq’s holy city of Kerbala.

Spain was due to take charge of the Polish-led division in July.

Earlier this year, Sofia asked peacekeepers from other nations to take over temporarily some of its duties in Iraq after a car bomb killed five of its soldiers in Kerbala, eroding morale among the battalion.

Bulgaria later rotated its troops but had problems persuading volunteers to sign up.

A Defense Ministry spokeswoman said Bulgaria had almost exhausted its army staff and financial recourses as it had already sent more than 800 soldiers on various missions abroad.

“We cannot do anything else. But we... have no intention of withdrawing from our responsibilities in Iraq,” she said.