A timetable for the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq has been put at the top of the agenda for forthcoming meetings of Premier Romano Prodi's cabinet.
The government intends to decide quickly on the timing of the Iraq pull-out in order to put its proposals to parliament, according to a note issued on Friday by the premier's office.
Exactly when soldiers should leave Iraq is a contentious issue for Prodi's nine-party coalition.
The premier has promised to bring the contingent home by the end of the year, in line with the previous centre-right government's commitment. But his most left-wing allies are pushing for a withdrawal by the summer. Prodi met his foreign and defence ministers, Massimo D'Alema and Arturo Parisi, for two hours on Friday morning morning to discuss the planned pull-out but were said to have reached no decision on the timing.
Pressed by reporters, Prodi was tight-lipped: "We talked about Iraq and I'm not saying anything else". This prompted the centre-right opposition to accuse the new government of being hopelessly divided on Iraq. "They've decided not to decide," jeered one MP with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.
The opposition called on the government to report to parliament immediately on its intentions regarding Iraq. Meanwhile, in the centre-left camp there was little sign of positions converging.
"We'll pull troops out as soon as possible, hopefully by the summer," said Communist Refoundation leader Franco Giordano. Another Communist formation, the PDCI, specified August as the right month, saying it was in the programme underwritten by the alliance before last month's elections. But other parties in the alliance were clearly less keen, talking about the need to agree the withdrawal with the Iraqi government and Italy's allies.
The centrist Udeur said calls for a summer withdrawal were "meaningless" and that a month or so made little difference.
Francesco Rutelli, head of the centrist Daisy party, refused to be drawn on dates and the Democratic Left, the largest party in the coalition, said nothing at all. Military authorities have made it clear that a full withdrawal would be difficult to achieve before September in any case.
Italy did not take part in the US-led war in Iraq but later sent troops for peacekeeping and reconstruction. It currently has 2,600 troops stationed there. The recent deaths of four Italian peacekeepers in Iraq, killed by a roadside bomb, reignited calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
Prodi is obliged to resolve the differences in his coalition soon because next month parliament must approve financing for foreign peacekeeping missions, including the one in Iraq. With a wafer-thin majority in the Senate, an unresolved dispute on Iraq could produce grave embarrassment for the premier when crucial vote comes around.
Friday's meeting between Prodi, Parisi and D'Alema focused on a series of technical options for the withdrawal and the organisation of a subsequent civilian mission in Iraq, foreign ministry sources said. It reportedly also looked at the possibility of separating the future of the Iraq mission from the rest of Italy's peacekeeping activities, in places such as Afghanistan and the Balkans. This could be done by creating two distinct decrees instead of one.
As well as Iraq, the list of priorities produced by the government on Friday also included the imminent economic planning document, legislation on quotas for women MPs, and the reform of a controversial law pushed through by the previous government to shorten the statute of limitations on certain crimes.
