Rome - Italy yesterday stood firmly by its stated aim of granting political asylum to Kurds fleeing persecution despite mounting fears in Germany that Rome was opening the flood gates to a tide of immigrants into the EU.
"The government line is one of maximum understanding," the interior ministry under-secretary, Mr Giannicola Sinisi, told reporters near the southeastern port of Otranto where 386 people - more than half of them Kurds - arrived on Thursday. But he added: "The government has a duty to make it known that ours is not a transit country towards other destinations."