http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.389318909&par=0
ITALY: FOCUS - CHANGING TIES WITH U.S. AND ARAB WORLD THE KEY TO GOVERNMENT CRISIS Rome, 23 Feb. (AKI) - Italy is used to political shake ups: it has been ruled by 62 governments in 61 years. However, the latest crisis triggered by the resignation of premier Romano Prodi has a rare, almost unprecedented element to it; it's the first over foreign policy since the start of the "Second Republic", the period after a massive corruption scandal brought down Italy's ruling class in the early 1990s, and only the second on foreign affairs since Italians voted to replace the monarchy with a republic after World War Two. A key element in this crisis is Italy's changing relations with the US and the Arab Muslim world, analysts say. Foreign policy has been an element of friction within the fractious, nine-party government alliance since it won one of Italy's closest elections ever last April - though the coalition's radical leftists, Catholics and secular progressives have squabbled in their 281 days in office on many key topics, from the budget to the legal recognition of civil unions. "Foreign policy however has been one of the most controversial and debated issues in the coalition in the past few weeks and it is no surprise that this [crisis] happened," Sergio Romano, a historian and a former Italian ambassador, told Adnkronos International (AKI). The core problem, analysts believe, was the government's efforts to engage in a new foreign policy by investing more in its relations with the Arab Muslim world and its role in Europe - in a break with the priorities of the previous conservative cabinet of Silvio Berlusconi - while battling with Communists and Greens allies who thought this change of emphasis implied a significant revision of Italy's close ties with the US. "There has always been a line of continuity in Italy's foreign policy but there is discontinuity between the Berlusconi and Prodi governments mostly because Prodi gave priority to relations with the Arab Muslim world and the construction of Europe, something which hadn't happened during the Berlusconi government," Romano said. Since stepping into power in May, the center-left cabinet has for instance hosted an international conference in Rome to discuss the Lebanon crisis during the July war between Hezbollah and Israel; it has given the main contribution to a UN-backed peacekeeping operation it is heading in southern Lebanon to oversee a fragile ceasefire inplemented since the end of the war on 14 August; and ministers have sought a more prominent role within the EU, for example during crisis talks over the nuclear programme of Iran, a key commercial ally of Rome. Yet alongside this, the hard left elements in the executive have questioned Italy's relations with the US and demanded that Rome pull out its 1,900-strong contingent within NATO from Afghanistan and forbid the enlargement of a US base in northern Italy worrying Washington, US historian Walter Russell Mead told Adnkronos International (AKI). "The strong majority of the centre-left and of the centre-right favours troops in Afghanistan and good relations with the US," Mead says. However, though opposition is limited to a relative minority within the center-left, "it happens to have a strategic position" in the government given its wafer-thin majority in Parliament. The government resigned after it lost in a key vote in the Senate - where it has a mere one-seat majority - over its foreign policy guidelines, notably refinancing its troops abroad in Lebanon, the Balkans and - the most sensitive issue - in the Afghan Nato mission, and approving the enlargement of a US base in Vicenza. This could hamper relations with the US which had become very close to Italy under the previous Berlusconi government which had sent almost 3,000 troops to Iraq and had significantly invested in close ties with Washington, says political analyst Michael Calingaert, an expert on Italy and Europe at Washington's Brookings Institute. The government crisis, Calingaert told AKI, "is unfortunate for two reasons: it brings instability to a country that we prefer to see stable and creates uncertainty about what the course will be." Indeed relations with the US were also at the center of the only previous significant crisis over Italy's foreign policy since after World War II. It took place in 1985 after then Italian premier Bettino Craxi refused to grant the extradition of a group of Palestinian hijackers who had been intercepted by US military planes and forced to land at the US military base of Sigonella, Sicily. The Italian premier appealed to the principle of territorial sovereignty and refused to extradite the group, who had hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and killed a US citizen - leading to a tense confrontation between Italian and US military at the Sigonella base. Eventually, the Egyptian plane originally carryng the hijackers to Tunis was escorted to Rome and their top man Abu Abbas, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, was allowed to flee to Yugoslavia. The small pro-US Republican party pulled out of Italy's five-party coalition, forcing Craxi to resign. A week later, the international crisis was resolved at a G7 summit in New York, when Craxi and then US President Ronald Reagan resolved their differences. Craxi returned to Rome and went on to head another reshuffled government. +++ ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Something is new at Yahoo! Groups. Check out the enhanced email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/kOt0.A/gOaOAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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