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Italian government meets over hostage crisis
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-08 10:09
Italian government in Rome, which was criticised for not doing enough to
save the life of an Italian journalist held hostage in Iraq last month, was
swift to react to the kidnapping there of two Italian women aid workers.
Iraqi police stand
outside the office of the Italian charity Un Ponte Per Baghdad (Bridge to
Baghdad). Armed men kidnapped two Italian women working for the charity
and two Iraqi aid workers from their Baghdad
office.[AFP] |
The cabinet held an emergency
meeting in Rome on Tuesday evening, following news the two women had been seized
from their office in Baghdad earlier in the day, and pledged to seek a united
national response to the hostage-taking.
"The government is convinced of the need for a united national response
in the face of terrorism and has scheduled a meeting for tomorrow with
representatives of the opposition," Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's office
said in a statement after the crisis meeting.
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini had already contacted his counterparts
in Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, who had assured him of their "full
personal commitment" to ensure the Italians' release, his ministry said.
Italy, a strong supporter for the US-led war in Iraq, is still recovering
from the execution of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, who was murdered on
August 26 after Rome refused to bow to militant demands for it to pull its 3,000
soldiers out of the oil-rich country.
The opposition urged the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
to do all it could to secure the aid workers' safe release and the prime
minister returned to Rome on Tuesday for the government crisis meeting when he
was told of the attack.
"The government is duty-bound to do all within its power to save their
lives," said Pietro Folena of the opposition Democrats of the Left.
"Let Italy do as France did," he added, in a reference to the
high-profile campaign in which France is engaged to bring about the release of
two reporters who are still held hostage by Iraqi militants.
Rome has come out badly in comparisons with the attitude Paris has
adopted to the kidnappings of its citizens in Iraq, with Baldoni's father
leading accusations that Rome failing to take his son's plight seriously.
The two Italian women -- who were kidnapped along with two Iraqi aid
workers -- worked for Italian charity Un Ponte Per Baghdad (Bridge to Baghdad).
One of the Iraqis worked for the same charity and the other for another Italian
aid agency called Intersos.
Witnesses said armed men abducted Simona Pari and Simona Torretta and the
two Iraqis from their Baghdad offices.
The attack was condemned by four senior Iraqi religious leaders,
including two imams.
The plea was issued in Milan by Mohammed Bachar Sharif al Faidhi from the
Committee of Muslim Ulema, Iraqi's most senior organisation of Sunni Muslim
scholars; brothers Mohammed and Jaouad Mahdi al Khalisi from the Iraqi reform
council; and Shlemon Wardnuni, the Catholic bishop of Baghdad.
"In the name of God the merciful, in the name of all the religious
clerics meeting here in Milan ... we urge the kidnappers to release immediately
and without pre-conditions the two Italians -- who were working in the interest
of Iraq and the Iraqi people -- and their Iraqi colleagues," the four religious
leaders said.
"Such acts damage Iraq's interests and only serve the interests of the
enemies of Iraq and the Iraqis," they said.
The four senior clerics were in Milan, northern Italy, for a large
religious gathering organised by the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Catholic
charity that has helped mediate in a number of international conflicts.
The union of Islamic organisations and communities in Italy has also
appealed for the release of the four aid workers.
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