Italy has demanded respect for its sovereignty over the CIA's alleged abduction of an Islamic cleric from a Milan street two years ago, according to a statement issued on Friday from the prime minister's office.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Friday told United States Ambassador Mel Sembler that the case highlighted the "indispensable need for full respect" of Italian sovereignty, the statement said.

It recalled "the mutual respect that has underlain the deep, close and lasting alliance" between the two countries.

Sembler said US respect was "full and total."

He promised Berlusconi it would not falter in the future.

On Thursday the government denied that US authorities had given it prior knowledge of an undercover operation targeting terror suspect Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar.

Abu Omar, the former imam of Milan's main mosque, disappeared mysteriously on February 17, 2003. At the time the Egyptian national was being probed by Milan investigators, suspected of having links to international terrorism.

Italian prosecutors say he was abducted by the CIA as part of its program of "extraordinary rendition" in which suspected terrorists are transferred without court approval to third countries for interrogation.

Last week a Milan judge signed arrest warrants for 13 people that prosecutors say made up the CIA team which carried out the kidnapping.

Source: Xinhua