ROME, Feb 4 (AFP) - Talks have begun to try to secure the release of an Italian woman journalist kidnapped on the streets of Baghdad, Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said Friday.
"The negotiating machinery has been set in motion," he told a meeting of his ruling party Forza Italia, without giving further details.
Meanwhile Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini summoned the Iraqi ambassador to urge the new Baghdad government to do all it could to secure the release of Giuliana Sgrena, correspondent of the newspaper Il Manifesto.
Berlusconi told party delegates he hoped the kidnapping had been a political one and that it would be possible "to achieve a solution quickly."
Gunmen kidnapped Sgrena, 56, a veteran Middle East correspondent, in broad daylight near a Baghdad mosque on Friday only minutes after she called her newspaper to say she was safe.
"Men driving in a minibus blocked her car. They left an Iraqi journalist and the Iraqi driver who were with her, and took her away," a Baghdad interior ministry official said.
Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said Sgrena had "probably been kidnapped by a Sunni (Arab) group" and pledged Rome's commitment "to do everything possible to secure her release."
Berlusconi said he was summoning top government members late Friday to address the situation. They would include Foreign Minister Fini, Defence Minister Antonio Martino and Interior Minister Pisanu.
Sgrena has worked since 1988 for the leftist Il Manifesto, which opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq. But Berlusconi supported Washington and sent Italian troops to serve with coalition forces.
Meanwhile Fini requested Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Al-Amil "to inform his government of Italy's strong expectation that all possible efforts will be made at all levels to obtain the journalist's release as soon as possible," the Italian foreign ministry said in a communique.
The envoy had replied that his government recognised Italy's commitment in Iraq to create a free and democratic country, and "will spare no effort to find a positive solution to this unhappy episode."
02/04/2005 18:51 GMT - AFP