US President George W. Bush will pay an official visit to Italy in June, the foreign ministry confirmed on Thursday.
Foreign ministry spokesman Pasquale Ferrara said at a weekly news briefing that the president's one-day trip to Rome would take place on June 9.
Ferrara gave no other details beyond saying that the president's schedule had yet to be finalised.
Bush will travel to Italy from Germany, where he is taking part in the June 6-8 Group of Eight summit.
The Italian visit will include talks with centre-left Premier Romano Prodi and a trip to the Vatican to meet Pope Benedict XVI.
Bush was last in Rome in June 2004, when opposition chief Silvio Berlusconi was premier and the late John Paul II was pope.
This year's trip comes after tensions between the two allies over foreign policy and other issues.
America was among allies who criticised Italy over its handling of a recent hostage case in Afghanistan.
Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo was kidnapped by the Taliban in southern Afghanistan on March 5. He was freed two weeks later in return for the release of five Taliban members held by the Afghan government.
The swap drew criticism from the US and Britain, who said it encouraged kidnappings, increased the dangers faced by NATO troops in Afghanistan and went against the long-established policy of never negotiating with terrorists. The Italian government's unusual public admission of the deal fuelled the criticism.
Another source of friction is the March 2005 death of Italian secret agent Nicola Calipari in a controversial 'friendly fire' roadblock incident in Iraq.
Calipari was shot and killed by US forces as he was accompanying a released Italian hostage to Baghdad airport and a US soldier has just gone on trial in Italy in absentia accused of murdering him.
Washington cleared its troops of any wrongdoing but refused to provide Italy with full details of its inquiry.
The Italian courts are also due to open a trial in June against 26 CIA operatives accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric in Milan in February 2003.
The trial would be the first judicial examination of America's controversial rendition policy, the abduction of terrorism suspects in one country in order to have them interrogated in another.
Plans to expand an American military base in the northern city of Vicenza have also sparked tensions, drawing fierce protests from city residents and leftist elements in Prodi's coalition.
More than 70,000 people took place in a recent protest march in Vicenza against the base's expansion.
The incidents have however done nothing to dent the firm ties between Italy and the US, officials stress.
Both countries repeatedly confirmed the strength of bilateral relations in the wake of the Mastrogiacomo incident.
