ROME, June 2 (UPI) -- Italian troops will leave Iraq by the end of 2006 regardless of the opinion of international partners such as Britain, Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Friday.
Speaking after a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Rome, the newly-elected leader said the decision to withdraw the country's troops had already been taken, suggesting that international opinion was irrelevant.
When asked whether Blair agreed with the Italian move, Prodi replied: "This is not the issue. Italy's decision has been taken."
It was now important to determine how to conduct the pullout in the most efficient and effective way, he said, "so as for the situation not to go out of control and security to deteriorate."
He said the two countries would now organize a meeting between their respective foreign ministers to discuss the withdrawal, which would hopefully take place within days.
Prodi emphasized the importance of his meeting with Blair, who is understood to have put forward proposals on the method and timing of the withdrawal. "We cannot forget that Italian troops have been deployed in a zone that is under British command," he said.
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi defied fierce public opposition to send some 3,000 troops to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. He too pledged to withdraw troops as his re-election bid neared, but much of his coalition -- now in opposition -- remains resistant to the move.
Senator Marcello Pera, a former Senate president of Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, said this "error" undermined both the credibility of Italy and the struggle against Islamic terrorism. Speaking at a meeting in Lucca organized by the Magna Carta Foundation, he said: "Italy has joined with Spain in opposition to the Iraq policies of Bush and Blair, uniting Rome to Paris and Berlin."
