ROME (Reuters) - Big power foreign ministers will seek common ground on thorny issues ranging from U.S. missile defense to sanctions on Iraq when they meet in Rome on Wednesday ahead of a weekend summit of Group of Eight leaders.Controversial U.S. plans for a missile defense shield and its effects on the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) are bound to figure in the two days of talks. Ministers will also review a number of global issues, including regional conflicts.
Italian Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero, the host of the Rome meeting, said it would focus on conflict prevention and arms control, as well as ``the main regional crises which are preventing the establishment of peace and stability.''
Secretary of State Colin Powell will join Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and their counterparts from Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada for talks at a 16th century villa overlooking the Tiber River.
The ministers will work on a communique to be issued at the G8 summit in the northwest Italian port of Genoa, a gathering that risks being drowned out by the protests of tens of thousands of anti-globalization demonstrators.
The foreign ministers meet just after the United States successfully tested a missile intercept over the Pacific Ocean, while Russia revived a strategic friendship accord with Communist neighbor China.
RUSSIA, CHINA BACK ABM TREATY
Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's President Jiang Zemin reaffirmed Monday backing of the ABM treaty as a pillar of strategic stability, even though Putin has agreed to consult with Washington on a missile defense scheme.
Britain has broadly backed the missile plan, but other Europeans are concerned it would weaken arms control agreements. France has warned it could lead to the proliferation of ballistic weapons.
Japan is studying with Washington a theater missile defense system aimed at shielding U.S. troops in Asia and its allies, but has stopped short of endorsing a national defense shield to protect the United States.
Powell was due to have breakfast with Ivanov Wednesday morning. U.S. officials said the secretary of state would raise U.S.-British proposals to revamp existing U.N. sanctions against Baghdad, imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
The proposals aim to ease restrictions on civilian goods imports but tighten them on military-related items. Russia has said it would veto the measure if it were put to the vote.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said the ministers will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian violence that has raged for 10 months and ways of tackling the ethnic conflict in Macedonia.
U.S. CRITICISM OF ISRAEL
In the Middle East, the United States criticized Israel Tuesday for demolishing homes in Palestinian-controlled areas in the previous two days, which sparked a fierce gun battle
with Palestinians.
France has also criticized a call by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to expand Jewish settlements on the Golan Heights.
On the Balkans, U.S. officials said ministers from Contact Group nations -- the United States, Russia, Germany, France, Britain and Italy -- may meet before the G8 summit to discuss how they can best support the peace process in Macedonia.
European Union and U.S. envoys are trying to persuade Macedonia's majority Slav and minority Albanian communities to agree on reforms to halt five months of guerrilla warfare. EU foreign policy chiefs will attend the Rome meeting.
In Genoa, police were due to largely seal off downtown Wednesday morning ahead of the summit, imposing a ``red zone'' where demonstrations will be banned.
Italian authorities hope they can avoid the violent clashes that accompanied last month's EU summit in Sweden, but a bomb explosion that injured a Genoa policeman on Monday has further jangled nerves in the run-up to the summit.