(ANSA) – Rome, May 20 – Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini avoided a diplomatic trap by cancelling Wednesday's scheduled trip to Iran because a key meeting venue was switched to the country's top missile launch site, the Iranian Resistance in Italy claimed.
"(Frattini) dodged at the last minute a trap that would have humiliated Italy," said Mahmoud Hakamian of the National Council of Iranian Resistance in Italy.
Hakamian claimed the alleged trap, which would have "forced (Frattini) to take part in the anti-Israel missile test celebrations," showed "the arrogance of power that has spun out of control".
He said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who wanted to greet Frattini at the Semnan site near the Afghan border hours after the successful testing of a new missile, was "'a ruthless dictator who has now shown his true face to the Italian people".
"He wants war, first with Israel and then with the West," the Resistance spokesman said.
Hakamian also claimed he had heard from unidentified sources in Tehran that Iran would have a nuclear bomb "within three years".
Frattini's decision to cancel the visit was hailed by a member of his People of Freedom party, Benedetto Della Vedova, as "showing Italy's opposition to (Ahmadinejad's) aggressive and provocative policy".
The small opposition Radical Party also praised the decision and said Iran posed a threat "not only to world peace and security but also, for decades, to its own people".
Mario Barbi of the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, said: "the reasons voiced by the foreign ministry for the sudden cancellation of the foreign minister's long-awaited visit to Tehran are not very convincing".
"We expect Frattini to explain what happened, above all with reference to the agenda of meetings, and conferring about the mission with (our) allies," he said.
Barbi voiced the hope that the incident would not jeopardise Iran's participation at a Group of Eight foreign ministers' meeting in Italy in June on stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan.
