According to a statement released on Saturday by Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema who was attending an official visit in Naples, the Italian government will hold a meeting next Wednesday in order to decide upon a potential plan concerning the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq.


This comes as a result of a statement made by Prodi earlier this week, in which the center-left leader of the government labeled the US invasion of Iraq as a "serious mistake" and that he did not want his country to be involved in occupational schemes.

The new Prodi-elected Italian cabinet wants to find a viable solution to bring home the remaining 2,600 troops from Iraq, but has not yet worked out a final and accurate step by step time scheme.

It seems government officials do not entirely agree with the previous plan, devised by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government, which envisioned the return of a 1,000 more troops by the end of June, while the rest were scheduled to withdraw by the end of the year. Moreover, the new cabinet wants the whole withdrawal process be speeded up, but Prodi claimed this should take into consideration the political plans of the Iraqi government and that of the allied forces stationed in Iraq.

In order to be able to call its troops home, but still provide help for the ailing Iraqi population, Italian officials have though about increasing the civilian presence in the area, which in political and diplomatic terms, is quite the best possible solution for a country that would like to maintain positive relationship with the international community. "We are not running away but we want to convert our commitment into a civilian presence in the best tradition of Italy", D'Alema assured.