The meeting between Italy's Franco Frattini and France's Dominique de Villepin will come a day after US Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the Iraq war with all 15 EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels.

De Villepin is due to meet with his Russian and German counterparts in Paris prior to the encounter.

France, Germany and Russia had fiercely opposed US efforts to launch a war on Iraq, while Italy had supported Washington's stance.

Meawhile the Italian government welcomed a decision by Greece, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, to organise a discussion on a common European defence policy during an informal meeting of foreign ministers on May 2.

"The Greek presidency's decision is positive," an authoritative source at the Italian foreign ministry told AFP, in the first Italian reaction to the Greek initiative.

Frattini had previously said that an April 29 mini-summit on EU defence between Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg should include all member states.

"The idea of a summit at the end of April is a good thing, among the 15, many of whom have the same ideas about these issues. But it must be something for all 15," Frattini said in an interview on earlier in the week.

The Iraq crisis has strained relations within the EU, with France and Germany leading the opposition to the US hardline stance in the crisis and Britain, Spain and Italy backing Washington.

SPACE.WIRE