The British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said that sovereignty must be handed back to the Iraqi people "as quickly as possible".
But the Foreign Secretary has accepted that the security situation in the country is "unsatisfactory".
Speaking at a news conference alongside American Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington, Mr Straw said that the coalition wanted to allow Iraqis to "assume sovereignty and responsibility for their own lives".
A day after 18 Italian police officers were killed in a suicide bombing in Southern Iraq, Mr Straw said: "The security situation, in parts but not all of Iraq, is unsatisfactory but we are determined to get through this difficult period and to ensure that power and sovereignty is transferred to the Iraqi people as quickly as possible."
Mr Straw said that, while the issue of Iraq had split Europe, it was in the interests of all nations that stability be brought to Iraq.
"There is, in my view, unanimity within Europe and across the Atlantic about what needs to be done in the future.
"Everybody in the international community has the same common interest ensuring that these terrorists are defeated, that the coalition is able to help create conditions of security, and that we advance as quickly as possible to ensure that the Iraqi people are the ones that assume sovereignty and responsibility for their own lives."
The Iraqi governing council has a deadline of December 15 for publishing a programme detailing how it intends to move forward and draw up a constitution for the country.
Mr Powell said it was a "mutual goal" within the coalition to speed up the process of handing power back to the Iraqi people.
He said: "We are all interested in accelerating the process of putting in place a government for the people of Iraq reflecting the will of the Iraqi people, representing all the people of Iraq and it has been our mutual goal - the UK, the United States and all our coalition partners - to go as fast as we can."