Italy offers to mediate

Press, 28 January 1984, Page 8

Italy offers to mediate

NZPA-Reuter Rome Italy would offer to bring Britain and Argentina to the negotiating table during a full day of Anglo-Italian consultations today, officials in Rome said yesterday. “We are not talking about formal Italian mediation at this stage but Italy is anxious to encourage the two countries to put the Falklands conflict behind them,” an aide at the Prime Minister’s Office said. The British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, and the newly installed Argentinian President, Mr Raul Alfonsin have indicated to the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Bettino Craxi, a conditional desire to negotiate a normalisation of trade and diplomatic ties. Italy considered itself ideally suited as a go-be-tween because of strong ethnic ties to Argentina on the one hand and its joint membership with Britain of N.A.T.O. and the European Community on the other hand, officials said. Mr Craxi and Mrs Thatcher were to meet today in Villa Madama, a Government residence overlooking the Olympic Stadium, to be joined later by four or five Ministers on either side. Among them are the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, and the Italian Foreign Minister, Mr Giulio Andreotti.