ROME: Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said on Sunday that increased U.S. military pressure in Iraq will not create a convincing exit strategy, Italian news media reported.
The search for a way out of Iraq "doesn't happen through increasing military pressure," the Italian news agency ANSA quoted D'Alema as telling reporters during a visit in Doha, Qatar. He said it was his "strong impression" that in U.S. planning for Iraq, "the fundamental aspect continues to be that of military action and its reinforcement, and this aspect doesn't convince us," ANSA quoted the minister as saying.
Italy's Sky TG24 carried a similar report from Doha.
A key to solving the Iraqi situation is setting up "police forces with multiethnic and multi-religious character," D'Alema was quoted as saying. "This type of force ought to be and could be able to prevent a clash of ethnic or religious nature, and one doesn't understand how it could be impeded by a foreign army," the minister said, according to ANSA.
D'Alema denied that under Premier Romano Prodi's center-left government Italy was "anti-American.
"We aren't anti-American. We are friends of Arab countries as Italy has always been a friend of Arab countries and friend of Israel," D'Alema said in remarks carried on Italian state TV.
D'Alema's sharp criticism last week of U.S. military action in Somalia triggered some contentions in the conservative opposition bloc of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi that Italy had turned against the Americans. As premier, Berlusconi staunchly backed the U.S. administration on Iraq and sent in Italian troops to help with reconstruction.
Prodi insisted that Italy is "absolutely trustworthy" in terms of relations with Washington, Italian news agencies quoted him as saying outside his house in Bologna Sunday evening.
The premier dismissed what he called "another invention of Berlusconi" regarding alleged doubts over Italian trustworthiness for Washington.
Last week the U.S. ambassador was greeted by noisy protests when he went to the northern Italian city of Vicenza to talk with local authorities about expanding the U.S. military base there. It was one of several demonstrations against the planned expansion.
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