Saturday, June 18, 2011

Italy May Consider Final Date of Libya Mission: Minister

ROME - Italy may begin thinking about a date for the end of its active duty in Libya after the three-month period of its commitment in the conflict is over, its defense minister said in an interview June 18.
"What I'm saying is that thinking about a final date for our active participation could lead our British, French and U.S. allies to look for a diplomatic solution to the crisis," Ignazio La Russa told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
La Russa said that both Italy's government and parliament should be involved in the process.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition government is riven by tensions after the small but influential anti-immigration Northern League called for a halt to Italy's participation in NATO air raids in Libya.
La Russa said that whatever Italy's position after the three-month period Rome would continue to make its military bases available for allied operations.
He also denied assertions by the Northern League that Italy's participation in the Libya campaign had caused an influx of refugees from North Africa across the Mediterranean Sea, which he said would have happened anyway.
The overwhelming majority of the estimated 11,000 Africans who have arrived in Italy from Libya are protected by the Geneva Convention and cannot be repatriated.
According to figures released June 17, only 60 of the 11,000 were Libyan.
Very few of the estimated 900,000 people who have fled fighting between the NATO-backed rebellion and forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi have ended up in Europe, Antonio Guterres, the head of the U.N. refugee agency, said Wednesday.
The Libyan regime and the country's former colonial ruler Italy signed a pact in August 2008 on tackling illegal migration which have seen the number of clandestine arrivals decline by 94 percent.
Under-pressure Gadhafi has threatened to spark a migration invasion of Europe.

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