By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Jan 25 2007 (IPS)

Fifty-six percent of Italians want Italian soldiers to leave Afghanistan, according to an opinion poll commissioned by the daily news online La Repubblica.

Parliament is due to vote within the next few weeks on extension of Italy’s military mission to Afghanistan. That vote is taken every six months.

Upset by the government’s decision earlier this week to allow expansion of a major U.S. military base in Vicenza in northeast Italy, far-left allies in the ruling nine-party centre-left coalition are now opposing the re-financing, and asking for withdrawal of Italian troops from Afghanistan. Italian troops were withdrawn from Iraq last year.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi has given his backing to expansion of the Vicenza base of the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade. The expansion would add about 1,500 personnel to the 2,750 military personnel already based in the town.

The decision taken by the former centre-right government that was voted out of office last April provides for expansion of a former military airfield in the town. A majority of Vicenza residents oppose the move.

Considering the nine month-old government’s tiny majority in parliament – just one seat in the upper house – a vote against refinancing the Afghan military mission could eventually force troop pullout, and result in a serious blow to Prodi’s coalition.

Italy supports the 32,000-strong North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan with around 1,800 soldiers.

The majority opinion against Italian troops’ presence rises to 64 percent among those declaring themselves voters of The Union (L’Unione), the ruling coalition. As expected, it his even higher among supporters of the far left parties – 85 per cent.

Communist and Green allies blame Prodi’s administration for blunting the centre-left’s ‘peaceful’ 2006 election message.

“It’s not being blunted,” Prodi said on an official visit to Turkey earlier this week. “Our commitment in Afghanistan isn’t a commitment of war.” Prodi pointed out that Italian troops are not deployed in the cities of Kabul and Herat, or in the battlefields against the Taliban – and he said this would not change.

“There will be no increase in troops, but we will respect our undertakings,” Prodi said. Gen. David Richards, commander of the NATO force in Afghanistan, told the Guardian newspaper earlier Monday that he needed more troops in Afghanistan.

Apparently they will not come from Italy, even if Italy does not quit outright. “I share the concerns about the increasingly difficult situation in Afghanistan, but Italy cannot decide to leave Afghanistan unilaterally; a withdrawal is impossible at the moment,” Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema said Thursday. “Our country would pay a high price in terms of credibility and isolation from the international community.”

To those asking for at least a change in the Afghan strategy, he said the government will “increase the presence of civilians and commit for the organisation of an international peace conference on Afghanistan to be held in Rome by October.”

“That is good news,” Sergio Marelli, president of the National Association of NGOs told IPS. “Again, and for the second time, the government is talking about civil cooperation.” The Italian government had granted 30 millions Euros last year for one year of cooperation activities with Lebanon, where it is leading the peacekeeping mission Unifil 2.

“This means that a non-militarist culture is widening, and this is also thanks to civil society organisations always reiterating that military intervention is not a solution,” Marelli told IPS. “What we expect now is a coherent follow up to this promise, that is a specific fund for civil initiatives, and that that troops don’t move to the southern part of the country where international forces have clearly an offensive mandate.”

The Communists and the Green party also welcomed the announcement on limiting Italy’s military role. But they want more. “We want the financing decree to specify a time for withdrawal, or we will vote against,” Paolo Cento, undersecretary of economy and a member of the Green Party told IPS.

“A plausible date for Italy to leave Afghanistan would be December 2008, not later,” he said. (END/IPS/EU/AP/IP/SZ/SS/07)

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