Visiting United States Vice President Dick Cheney met with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Monday for a discussion on a broad range of issues including the crisis in Georgia.
Sources at the presidential Palace said the talks also focused on the European Union's foreign and defense polices and the common ground between US and EU positions on foreign policy issues.
The vice president came to Italy at the end of a four-nation tour which also took him to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
Cheney, who is set to meet with Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday, has been in Italy since the weekend and there has been some speculation on the duration of his stay.
The daily Corriere della Sera on Saturday cited authoritative reports that while in Italy Cheney would meet secretly with Iranian envoys in a bid to ease tensions between Washington and Tehran.
According to the daily, which used as its source the American think-tank Strafor, said to be close to the CIA, the US and Iran both want to improve relations in the wake of Russia's invasion of Georgia which changed the political balance in the region.
Relations between the two countries deteriorated over Iran's nuclear ambitions and its repeated verbal attacks on Israel.
On Saturday, Cheney addressed the Ambrosetti Forum on Lake Como where he warned Europeans against what he claims is Moscow's intention to restore the influence it had as the Soviet Union.
This through military aggression, as in Georgia, and economic blackmail, playing on Europe's dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Cheney and his wife Lynn have also done some sightseeing in Italy and on Monday afternoon visited the Etruscan city of Orvieto, north of Rome.
