Italy’s PM visits Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) — Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi arrived in Afghanistan Sunday morning to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and to visit with his country’s troops participating in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry said.
Prodi’s visit follows a day after the leaders of France and Australia paid similar visits to Afghanistan.
The Italian prime minister landed in Kabul where he is also expected to visit with some of the Italian troops stationed there, according to an official with the Italian Embassy.
Most of Italy’s 2,000 troops assigned to ISAF are stationed in western Afghanistan’s Herat region, but it was not immediately known if Prodi planned to travel there.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was elected in a landslide victory on November 24, told reporters at a news conference in Kabul Saturday that his country was in Afghanistan for the long haul.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in his meeting with the Afghan leader, assured President Karzai of his government’s long term political and military support with the people of Afghanistan, according to a statement from the Afghan president’s office.
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