US President George W Bush has apologised to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over the shooting of a Koran by a US soldier near Baghdad.
Iraqi television reported that the prime minister received the apology from the US president.
US military authorities in Iraq have apologised to the local community west of Baghdad where the staff sergeant fired at the Koran during shooting practice on 11 May.
The unidentified soldier, who shot bullets into the Muslim holy book and wrote an expletive inside, has since been expelled from his unit and sent home.
The US military described the incident as both serious and deeply troubling, but said it was isolated.
Separately, Iraqi troops have poured into the Baghdad Shia stronghold of Sadr City without resistance from militias who have been fighting street battles with US forces for weeks.
Large numbers of heavily armed soldiers fanned out in Sadr City for the first time in the eight weeks since heavy fighting broke out between loyalists of the anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and US security forces.
Baghdad security officials said they launched 'Operation Peace' at dawn to clear the area where mines had been planted by militiamen.
The Iraqi troop action is in line with a truce deal reached earlier this month between the government and Sadr's movement aimed at ending the deadly street battles that first erupted in late March.
Both US military and Iraqi officials have reported a marked scaling down of violence since the truce deal.
