South American countries that contributed troops to the United Nations mission in Haiti have agreed to ask the Security Council to reduce the number of troops deployed in the Caribbean country.

Uruguayan Foreign Minister Luis Almagro says the foreign ministers of nine South American nations want troop levels reduced to the numbers in Haiti before last year's devastating earthquake.

Two-thousand additional peacekeepers were sent to Haiti to help the nation after the earthquake killed more than 200,000 people and left hundreds of thousands of survivors living in tent cities.

Officials now believe conditions have improved enough to withdraw some of the additional troops, providing Haiti's security is not comprised.

More than 40 percent of the U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti are from South America.