Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday hailed Rome's ''positive'' stance on Mideast issues.
Speaking at a press conference alongside Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, Lieberman said it was ''no accident'' that Rome had been chosen as the first stage of a European tour that marks his debut on the international scene.
''I believe Italy can have a decisive role in relations between Israel and the moderate Arab countries,'' Lieberman said, praising Rome as ''a friend who has a profound knowledge of the Middle Eastern scene in its complexity''.
Lieberman confirmed he would be pushing the European Union to lift a threat to freeze an upgrade in relations.
Brussels has said it might suspend the planned upgrade unless the new rightwing Israeli government endorses a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Asked about the prospects for a Palestinian state, Lieberman said that the Israeli government ''is not looking for slogans but concrete results''.
He said that in the last 16 years, since the Oslo Accords, ''the international community and Israel have had various meetings and made various statements but the final result has been stalemate''.
He said the new government, unlike its predecessors, ''intends to produce concrete results rather than slogans and pompous declarations''.
Lieberman, who praised Italy for boycotting the recent Durban racism review conference where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a fresh tirade against Israel, added that a nuclear Iran would destabilise the world.
After talks with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday, the ultranationalist Lieberman is set to visit Paris, Berlin and Prague - which currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency.
