Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday called United States President-elect Barack Obama ''tanned''.
''Obama is young, handsome and also tanned, so he has all the qualities to agree with you,'' Berlusconi told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
As domestic opponents urged Berlusconi to issue an immediate apology, Berlusconi told a press conference that his ''tanned'' remark, construed by many as a gaffe, was ''a great compliment''.
Berlusconi responded to a reporter's suggestion that the remark might be misunderstood by accusing his opponents of not having a sense of humour.
''God save us from imbeciles,'' he said.
An Italian opposition MP responded by saying: ''An imbecile is someone who doesn't grasp the seriousness of his remarks, who talks about the president of the United States as if he was a lad come to play for his (soccer club) AC Milan, with an amazing superficiality that raises goose pimples''.
The leader of the largest opposition party, Walter Veltroni of the Democratic Left, called on Berlusconi to issue an official apology to Obama, saying he had ''seriously hurt Italy's image and dignity'' on the international scene.
Veltroni linked the premier's remark with one the previous day from the head of the premier's caucus in the Senate who said al Qaeda would be ''happier'' with Obama in the White House.
Veltroni said that, taken together, the two comments ''risked causing a fracture in the friendship with that country and people which have given the world a great sign of hope and change''.
But a member of Berlusconi's centre-right party accused the premier's ''pseudo-intellectual'' critics of ''taking themselves too seriously'' in slamming a ''jocular compliment''.
The flamboyant Italian leader has a long history of gaffes, his opponents claim.
In 2005 he said he wooed Finnish President Tarja Halonen with his ''playboy wiles'' to win Italy a major European food agency.
The remark brought a protest from the Finnish embassy in Rome.
Undeterred, he said Europeans were bound to find Parma ham ''more appetising than reindeer meat''.
''I've been through the Finnish diet and I know what it means,'' he told chuckling reporters.
Berlusconi is known for his efforts to lighten up international events.
On one occasion he made the Italian horned 'cuckold' gesture for an EU group photo.
On another occasion, he said that visiting Danish Premier Anders Fogh Rasmussen was the best-looking premier in Europe, more attractive than Venice Mayor Massimo Cacciari, a friend of Berlusconi's wife.
Berlusconi's maiden speech to the European Parliament in 2002 also spurred controversy when he likened a heckling German EMP to a Nazi concentration camp trusty.
Trying to quieten an international outcry, the premier said he had been thinking of a popular character from the 1970s comedy series Hogan's Heroes, set in a WWII prison camp.
In 2003 Berlusconi described Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini as a benign leader who never murdered anyone and whose internment camps were ''like holiday camps''.
In 2001, soon after taking over for his second stint as premier, he caused an international uproar by claiming Western civilisation was superior to that of Islam.
On the domestic front one of his last perceived slip-ups was before the 2006 election, when he said any Italian who didn't vote for him would be a ''di**head''. He went on to lose the election.
