ROME — Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa insisted that Italy would not withdraw from Afghanistan after a key ally of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called for a troop pullout, in an interview published Monday.

Umberto Bossi, the reform minister and head of the anti-immigrant Northern League, said at the weekend that he "would bring them all home" after three Italian soldiers were slightly wounded in Afghanistan.

Asked if there was a date for the return of Italian soldiers, La Russa told Corriere della Sera: "I don't know. Not right now. We will come home when the mission is finished: when the Afghan government will be able to control its territory, when the army and police will be able to face off with the rebels."

La Russa downplayed the comments made by Bossi, whose Northern League gives the conservative Berlusconi a clear majority in parliament.

"These last few years, Bossi has become softer, a good family man. And he said this phrase at the end of a party ... in a family atmosphere. But there is no controversy within the government," La Russa said.

But a second minister from the Northern League, Roberto Calderoli, said Italians want the troops to come home. Italy has around 3,250 soldiers in Afghanistan taking part in a NATO-led mission in the war-scarred country.

"The majority of Italians think like Bossi," he told la Repubblica newspaper.

Citing "a problem of financial resources," Calderoli said Italy should review its missions abroad, including in Lebanon and the Balkans.

"If we don't have them (financial resources), let's return home. Lebanon and the Balkans, we drop them, and regarding Afghanistan, let's think about it," he said.

La Russa said he did not expect the Northern League to vote against foreign military missions in the future but admitted that it would be "a problem" if it did so.

"We are members of NATO, which entails rights and duties. Returning (troops to Italy) would have economic and political consequences," he said.