Premier Romano Prodi sought on Monday to play down tensions with pacifist allies who are pressuring him to pull Italian troops out of Afghanistan.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to Turkey, the centre-left chief said he had a "constructive" meeting on Sunday evening with the three parties who are against the mission - the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), the Italian Communists' Party (PDCI) and the Greens.
"There is no desire to create problems... Our commitment to the international community is clear and shared... We won't send more troops but we won't withdraw from our commitments either," Prodi said.
In a bid to appease pacifist demands for "discontinuity" with current policies, Prodi said that Italy would push for an increase in the civilian force working in Afghanistan.
He also said it would lobby for an international conference on Afghanistan with the aim of finding political solutions to the country's troubles.
"The government's pacifist vocation is not waning," added the former European Commission chief.
The Afghan issue is crucial for Prodi because parliament will soon have to vote on refinancing Italy's mission for another six months.
While Prodi enjoys a solid majority in the House, in the Senate he holds only one more seat than the Silvio Berlusconi opposition so the full support of his coalition is essential.
When the refinancing issue last came up in July, Prodi was forced to resort to a do-or-die confidence vote in the Senate to prevent a handful of pacifist rebels sinking the measure.
Almost 2,000 Italian troops are serving in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led ISAF peacekeeping mission there.
But critics in Prodi's nine-party coalition say Afghanistan has now become too dangerous for a peacekeeping mission.
Afghanistan has seen a strong resurgence of attacks by Taliban Islamists whose government was toppled by US and allied Afghan forces in November 2001.
NATO's commander of forces in Afghanistan, General David Richards, called on Monday for more troops to defeat the Taliban amid indications that the insurgency would intensify in coming months.
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema, who held talks earlier on Monday with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, stressed from Brussels that Italy had not been asked to contribute more soldiers.
But he also stressed that an Italian pullout was "not realistically on the agenda".
"There is a growing acknowledgement that new policy elements are required in Afghanistan," the former premier conceded, adding that "the mission refinancing decree will confirm our commitment on a military level and extend it on a humanitarian and civilian one".
But Italian Welfare Minister Paolo Ferrero, a PRC heavyweight who took part in Sunday's meeting with Prodi, said that "the idea that military intervention can solve the situation in Afghanistan has proved to be false. "Therefore, we have to see how strategy can be modified if peace is to be achieved".
The opposition has attacked the centre left's divided stance on the issue but Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and an ally, the Northern League, have also extended a hand, saying they will help the government out by voting in favour of continuing the mission.
But it would be a major embarrassment for Prodi if he is forced to rely on the centre right to get the refinancing measure approved.
It could even lead to calls for Prodi's resignation or new elections.
Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, who heads the tiny UDEUR party, warned on Sunday that "if the opposition's support is decisive, then that would be the end of the government".
Green chief Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, who also took part in the Sunday meeting with Prodi, stressed that his party was not delivering an ultimatum.
"We aren't demanding a pullout but discontinuity. The premier cannot re-present a refinancing decree which is identical to the one approved in July... The mission cannot last forever and there has to be an exit strategy".
The PDCI called for "clear indications on how and when our troops will be withdrawn". The PRC, the PDCI and the Greens are still simmering over Prodi's decision to greenlight the expansion of a US military base in the northern city of Vicenza.
The Vicenza base currently houses 2,600 troops. The expansion project involves building barracks at the city's Dal Molin airport to accommodate 1,800 more US soldiers who are now stationed in Germany.
Prodi has said the government will not oppose the base's enlargement, arguing that to do so would be diplomatically impossible because the plan has already been approved by the previous, Berlusconi-led government.
But the decision has led some pacifists in the governing coalition to adopt a more inflexible stance over Afghanistan.
While Minister Ferrero denied there was any connection between the two issues, other pacifists said the Vicenza decision would have "repercussions" on the Afghan vote.
