Italy emphasises troop safety in Kosovo

NATO has agreed to supply more information about the ammunition

ROME, Italy -- Italian troops are to be reassured over their exposure to potentially harmful chemicals after concern was raised about the use of uranium bullets used in the Kosovo campaign.

Italian Foreign Minister Sergio Matarella is to visit the region on Thursday to meet Italian peacekeepers while the country continues to press NATO for more information about the ammunition.

Six Italians who had served in Kosovo and Bosnia have died of leukaemia and there is concern -- although no scientific evidence -- that there may be a connection with the use of armour piercing uranium weapons.

NATO has agreed to help Italy investigate the claims, which is also raising fears in other alliance member states such as Portugal and Belgium.

AUDIO Possible link between depleted uranium and serious illness 1.07 MB/104 sec.. AIFF or WAV sound    MESSAGE BOARD Peace in the Balkans

Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said in an interview published in La Repubblica newspaper that alarm over the so-called "Balkan syndrome" was "more than legitimate."

"This is a very delicate situation," Amato said, adding that his government had only recently discovered that the depleted uranium ammunition was used in the earlier Bosnia mission as well as in Kosovo.

"We've always known that it was a danger only in absolutely exceptional circumstances ... while in normal circumstances it isn't dangerous at all," he said. "But now we're starting to have a justified fear that things aren't that simple."

Doctors have said there is insufficient evidence to link the deaths to exposure to uranium bullets but the Italian media have claimed the number of deaths is too high to be coincidental.

A spokeswoman at NATO's headquarters in Brussels confirmed the alliance had received a request from Italy "for more information on the geographic use of the depleted uranium."

"NATO will do everything it can to provide this information ... Italy is a member country (of the alliance) and if it requests something, the alliance will do its best to help," the spokeswoman said.

Amato's acknowledgement that "Balkan syndrome" was of serious concern prompted swift reaction in Italy.

The Communist Refoundation Party, which supported the centre-left government from 1996-98, called for all Italian troops to be pulled out of the former Yugoslavia immediately.

Franco Giordano, Refoundation's leader in the lower house of parliament, also called for Javier Solana, NATO's secretary-general during the Kosovo conflict of 1999, to resign from his current post as European Union foreign policy chief.

An association representing families of the six Italian dead released a copy of a document in English which it said was a list of NATO guidelines of how to deal with depleted uranium.

The association said the document, dated November 22, 1999 and apparently issued from the Yugoslav town of Pec, had never been given to troops before that date, although soldiers had by then spent months peacekeeping in Kosovo after a conflict in which uranium-tipped shells were used.

"It is very important to be aware of the problem, to know how to protect soldiers and how to avoid long term health effects," the document reads. "It is important to disseminate this information to all levels."

The latest soldier to die was a 24-year-old from Sicily who served twice in Bosnia but never in Kosovo.

Some 60,000 Italian soldiers and 15,000 civilians served in the Balkans during the 1990s.

According to Italian media reports, NATO used around 31,500 bullets and shells capped with uranium during the campaign.

Amato's call for a NATO probe followed similar expressions of concern from elsewhere in Europe.

Belgium has called for European Union defence ministers to discuss health problems suffered by peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia.

Portugal has ordered medical tests for its military and civilian personnel serving in Kosovo to check for exposure to radiation and Defence Minister Julio Castro Caldas has proposed a meeting of NATO countries to share information and agree common methods of testing.

Concerns have also been raised by service members or civilian aid workers in Britain and the Netherlands.

Reuters contributed to this report.

NATO weapons in cancer scare
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Peacekeepers' deaths linked to 'Balkans syndrome'
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NATO
Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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