ROME - Italy's role in Iraq was praised Friday by a senior US official who urged Rome to maintain its force of 3,000 troops based in the south of the country.
"Italy has had a very important role given troop numbers and given the location of Italian forces and we hope very much that we can continue to rely on Italian support," Nicholas Burns, US State Department undersecretary for political affairs, told reporters in Rome.
Earlier in the week Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, who held talks with Burns, said Italian forces would pull out no later than February of next year. "Obviously given our own troop presence in Iraq and given the fact that there is now a new Iraqi government elected that has a considerable challenge ahead of itself (....) it is our strong hope that our allies will stay with us in Iraq," Burns said.
Rome has been one of the strongest supporters of the United States over Iraq but relations were strained when US troops in Iraq recently shot and killed an Italian intelligence agent, Nicola Calipari.
Calipari was shot dead on March 4 at a US checkpoint near Baghdad airport as he was shepherding a freed Italian hostage to safety in Baghdad airport.
The US account exonerated US troops for any blame over the incident, in which Calipari was killed and the freed hostage, journalist Giuliana Sgrena, was injured.
But the Italian version blamed the killing on the "inexperience" of US troops acting under stress and without proper rules of engagement.
05/13/2005 18:17 GMT