ROME: Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has made many claims in the course of Italy’s rough-and-tumble election campaign, and on Thursday he added another: he was the key architect behind the end of the Cold War. That would surprise most historians, who say the Cold War ended between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. But Berlusconi said it ended in May 2002 at a NATO summit he hosted near Rome attended by U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “And I succeeded (in ending the Cold War) because here in Rome, at Pratica di Mare (air base) in 2002 I convinced George Bush and Vladimir Putin, using all my talents of friendly relations, to end the Cold War,” he said. Berlusconi, 81, who led four governments between 1994 and 2011, has often claimed that during his administrations Italy was more respected internationally than it had been under centre-left coalitions.

Source: Pakistan Today February 15, 2018 11:03 UTC