Italian Premier Offers Resignation

Italian Premier Roman Prodi has offered his resignation after a parliamentary vote in Rome of over his foreign policy.

ANSA reported that Prodi gave his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano but that the president didn’t immediately accept it.

Napolitano could ask Prodi to call a parliamentary confidence vote on his government or he could formally accept the resignation, political analysts told ANSA.

Prodi has been backed by a nine-party coalition and a spokesman for the centrist Daisy said the main parties would back the premier in a confidence vote.

We are ready to reconfirm our full support for the Prodi government. The consultations will be useful for clarification enabling (the government) to pass a confidence vote and show that it has the majority to govern, Daisy’s Dario Franceschini told ANSA.

Prodi has come under criticism from Italian pacifists for failing to pull Italian troops out of Afghanistan and for allowing the U.S. military to expand a base in the northern city of Vicenza.