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Italy to present plan for Libya crisis: minister

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Sarkozy "has said he has ideas. Since we too have ideas, we will present our plan of action in London," Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said in an interview with Quotidiano Nazionale published on Saturday.

Frattini also said that he had received assurances from the head of the Libyan opposition's interim national council Mahmoud Jibril that any future government of Libya would respect current trade ties with Italy.

"He guaranteed that they will stick to all international accords with partners who want a united Libya and they will also respect oil contracts.

"This is reassuring for investors like ENI and confirms that we're not at all out of the picture," he said.

Italy's ENI is the biggest foreign energy producer in Libya but suspended all oil export operations in the country as the uprising escalated.

Libya was an Italian colony between 1911 and 1942 and is Italy's top trade partner following the signing of a friendship treaty in 2008 in which Rome promised to compensate Moamer Qadhafi's regime for damages from colonial times.

The Italian government says the treaty, which includes a clause which forbids Italian bases from being used to bomb Libya, is no longer valid.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has drawn criticism in recent years for his close ties to Qadhafi.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011