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The Italian government on Thursday denied the accusation that it was trying to cover up alleged involvement in the fake intelligence documents which claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa.
"Everyone knows these documents did not come from our intelligence services," said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. He was responding to growing media reports that Italy had supplied Britain and the United States with the forged documents.
"No documents were transmitted" by Italy to any foreign governments, he said.
United States President George W. Bush admitted last week that the uranium claim in his State of the Union address in January was false and based on forged documents contained in a September 2002 British dossier on Iraq.
But US weekly, Newsweek, reported on Thursday that it was in October 2002 that the forged documents were handed over to the US Embassy in Rome, possibly by an Italian journalist.
The magazine speculated that the journalist had asked for money in exchange for the documents, but added that there was no evidence the embassy had paid for the reports.
The FBI has opened an inquiry into the case and had sent several agents to Rome, Newsweek said.
Italian magistrates have also launched an investigation into the case.
The Italian premier's office on Sunday strongly denied that Italy had supplied Britain or the United States with the fake reports.
"The news reported by various press organs, national and foreign ... are completely groundless," said a statement from the office of Premier Silvio Berlusconi. "Italian intelligence services have never supplied anyone with such types of documents."
(Xinhua News Agency July 18, 2003)
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