Italy says diplomatic spat with U.S. closed

ROME (Reuters) - Italy said on Thursday a diplomatic row with Washington, caused by what Rome said was an attempt by the United States to interfere in its foreign policy, was over.

"The case can be considered closed," Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said in a statement after meeting U.S. Ambassador Ronald Spogli.

The U.S. envoy last week signed an open letter in an Italian newspaper calling for greater support for the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Ambassadors of five other nations also signed it.

D'Alema reacted with what he called "surprise and disapproval" to the letter as the Afghanistan issue threatened to topple the seven-month-old government which includes pro-NATO centrists and far-left pacifists.

"The public comment by six ambassadors to Rome lends itself to being interpreted as unfortunate outside interference," D'Alema said on Tuesday.

The spat marked a low point for relations between the allies which were also marred by the killing of an Italian secret service agent by U.S. troops in Iraq and controversy over plans to expand a U.S. air base in northern Italy.

On Wednesday, a Rome judge ordered the trial of a U.S. soldier for the 2005 shooting of Nicola Calipari who had just secured the release of an Italian hostage in Iraq.

Washington has said it considers the killing at a checkpoint outside Baghdad airport an accident and the matter closed.

While the Calipari affair is in the hands of the judiciary, Prime Minister Romano Prodi still has to deal with the Afghanistan issue -- balancing the requests of NATO for greater military commitment with the demands of the left for a pullout.

At a NATO meeting in Spain on Thursday, Defense Minister Arturo Parisi said Italy would send an extra Hercules plane and two unmanned drones to Afghanistan but would not increase troop levels from the current 1,900.

Unless the government reduces Italy's military role in Afghanistan, pacifists have threatened to vote against the ruling coalition the next time parliament has to back the financing of the Afghanistan mission -- something that happens every six months.