Turkey's sports minister, Yucel Seckiner, has invited his Italian counterpart, Giovanna Melandri, to attend a Champions League football match next week despite the tense relations between the two countries.

Mr Seckiner said the current row over Italy's refusal to extradite the Kurdish rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan to Turkey, should not affect sporting links.

The game, between Galatasaray and Juventus had been postponed for a week by the ruling body, UEFA, because of fears of crowd trouble.

But Mr Seckiner criticised the decision and said he guaranteed that the match would be safe.