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Italy "irritated" by allies' criticisms over hostage deal
Rome (dpa) - Italy's government is "surprised" and "irritated" by United States criticisms of the exchange of Taliban prisoners by the Afghan government to secure the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist, media reports said Thursday. According to daily Corriere della Sera, Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government has reacted to the criticisms with a mix of "irritation, surprise and suspicion." Italian officials noted that the criticisms came just hours after Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema had publicly thanked US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for her "understanding" over the affair.

On Wednesday, a senior US administration official said the US had formally complained to Italy for pressurising the Afghan government into agreeing to release several insurgents, saying the deal had "caught the US by surprise."

Similar criticisms were voiced by the British Foreign Office, which said the deal sent "the wrong signal to prospective hostage- takers," as well as by Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen. "When we create a situation where you can buy the freedom of Taliban fighters when you catch a journalist, in a short term there will be no journalists any more," Verhagen told reporters during a visit to the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul.
Hummmmm....
La Repubblica correspondent Daniele Mastrogiacomo was released on Monday, two weeks after being "arrested" by the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand, after Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed to release five insurgents described by the US as "dangerous" terrorists. An Afghan presidential spokesman admitted on Tuesday that his government had handed over some Taliban prisoners to secure Mastrogiacomo's release.

In an interview Wednesday with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, the 52-year-old reporter defended the Afghan government's decision, saying human life should be "safeguarded at all costs." "I think it is right to negotiate if it means showing that we are different from the Taliban, that we know how to forgive and that we respect human life above anything else.
Including honor ...
"The Taliban control three-quarters of southern Afghanistan. There's 5,000 of them. Releasing two or three prisoners wouldn't make any difference," he told dpa.

The spat comes at a sensitive time for the Prodi government, which is in the process of pushing through parliament a bill extending Italy's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. A final vote is due to take place next week in the Senate, where the government enjoys only a wafer-thin majority. Prodi was forced to step down briefly last month after left-wing dissidents voted against his government's foreign policy in opposition to Italy's role in Afghanistan. D'Alema planned to phone Rice later on Thursday to try and clarify the situation.
Posted by: Steve 2007-03-22
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=183749