Italian PM meets Putin

The Italian prime minister Guiliano Amato has held talks in Moscow with President Putin about the conflict in the Balkans.

Russia's foreign minister Igor Ivanov said after the meeting that the two leaders agreed that Europe was facing a serious threat.

The two men also discussed trade and the agenda for the G-Eight summit of Russia and the seven leading industrialised nations in the Italian city of Genoa in July.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service