Rice to meet Italy minister ahead of Iraq pullout

ROME, May 27 (Reuters) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet her new Italian counterpart on June 12 in Washington to discuss issues including Rome's plans to withdraw its troops from Iraq, Italy's foreign ministry said today.

Italy's centre-left Prime Minister Romano Prodi has vowed to live up to campaign promises for a swift pull-out, recently calling the Iraq war a ''grave error''.

Prodi, elected last month, is still drawing up a timetable to withdraw Italy's 2,800 soldiers. He is expected to speed up plans by his centre-right predecessor Silvio Berlusconi that would have ended the Iraq mission by the end of the year.

Military sources have suggested this might now happen within several months.

A ministry spokesman said the agenda for the meeting between Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema and Rice had not been finalised, but that the Iraq withdrawal would be one of the items.

D'Alema said last week that Italy will show less deference to the United States now that Berlusconi, one of U.S. President George W. Bush's strongest supporters, has lost power. But the government has stressed that the nations would remain close allies.

REUTERS CH KP2240