By IAN FISHER
Published: February 22, 2007
ROME, Feb. 21 — Italy’s fragile government snapped suddenly on Wednesday under the weight of its own internal divisions as well as a broader skepticism about the European role in the worldwide fight against terrorism.
Prime Minister Romano Prodi, in office just nine months, submitted his resignation Wednesday evening after his governing coalition lost a key vote on foreign policy in the Senate.
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The government’s far-left members, however, have strongly resisted the presence of nearly 2,000 Italian troops in Afghanistan. And last weekend, tens of thousands of people rallied against the expansion of the American-staffed NATO base in Vicenza, which Mr. Prodi’s government reluctantly supported.
The splits grew deeper, and on Tuesday in Spain, Italy’s foreign minister, Massismo D’Alema, himself a former prime minister, called for the Senate to endorse Italy’s foreign policy. If it did not, he said, the government should “go home,” or step down.
In a long and impassioned speech before the vote on Wednesday, Mr. D’Alema defended his government’s position on Afghanistan and the Vicenza base, in terms that he hoped would win the left’s support.
“We have not supported the neoconservative politics of the American administration and we have not sent soldiers to Iraq,” he told his colleagues. “There is a profound difference between the military operations in Afghanistan, approved by the United Nations, and those in Iraq.”
He added that the support of expanding the base was essential to good relations with America. “To change course would be a hostile act against the United States,” he said.
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