[attach id=244118 size="medium"]Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, who resigned yesterday. Photo: Reuters[/attach]
Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi resigned yesterday over his Government’s decision to return two marines to India to face trial for the murder of local fishermen while on anti-piracy duty.
“I can no longer be part of this government and I announce my resignation,” Terzi said during testimony to the lower house of parliament. “My reservations about sending the marines back to India were not listened to.”
The marines, Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre, are facing trial in India over the shooting dead of two fishermen off the southern state of Kerala in February 2012 when they were on anti-piracy duty on an Italian commercial tanker.
They said they fired warning shots at a boat they believed to be a pirate vessel.
Since the incident, India and Italy have been embroiled in an escalating row at a time when Rome is trying to secure a major deal to sell helicopters to the Indian Government.
My reservations were not listened to
The marines were allowed home for Christmas, and then again to vote in the Italian elections in February, on condition they returned to India.
On March 11, the outgoing technocrat government of Mario Monti said it would not send the marines back because Indian courts did not have jurisdiction over the incident, which Rome said occurred in inter-national waters.
But Italy reversed its position last week after India prevented the Italian Ambassador from leaving the country.
Latorre and Girone returned to New Delhi on Friday in what defence forces chief Admiral Luigi Binelli Mantelli called a “farce”.
The two men themselves wrote a letter to lawmakers saying their return to India was a tragedy.
The confused handling of the dispute has been a black mark on Monti’s brief, 17-month Government, and has led to accusations that the Government has made Italy appear diplomatically weak.
The marines’ anti-piracy duty was conducted under the umbrella of a UN resolution to safeguard shipping from repeated pirate attacks.
Terzi said he resigned to protect the “honour of the country, of the armed forces, and Italian diplomacy,” drawing loud applause from lawmakers.
His announcement reversed an interview he gave to a newspaper last Friday in which he said he “didn’t see a reason” to step down.
Italy has been in a political limbo for a month since the vote, which gave no political group a working majority in parliament. But Monti’s Government, now in a caretaker capacity, is unlikely to remain in power for more than a few weeks.
Defence Minister Giampaolo Di Paola, who spoke immediately after Terzi, rejected his gesture.