Rome, 10 June-(ANA)-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is due in Rome at the start of his first visit to Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler and now its biggest trading partner.
He will be accompanied by a delegation of Libyan businessmen looking to boost their investments in Italian industry.
During his stay, Col Gaddafi will meet Italy's president and prime minister, visit both houses of parliament and attend a university debate.
Talks are also expected to focus on the issue of illegal immigration.
Col Gaddafi is expected to meet his visitors in a Bedouin-style tent which has been set up in the park of a 17th Century Roman villa where he is staying.
He is also due to address a group of 700 women at Rome's concert hall, having requested a meeting with prominent Italian women from the fields of business, politics and culture.
He held a similar meeting on a visit to Paris in 2007 with 1,000 selected women guests, who were told he wanted to "save European women."
Col Gaddafi, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the African Union, will return to Rome next month as a delegate to the Group of Eight summit.
But this is his first visit to Italy since he took power in a coup in 1969, following Italy's 30-year occupation of Libya.
Last year, Rome agreed to pay Libya $5bn (£3bn) in reparations for the misdeeds of colonial times. (ANA)
Noble Pease Prize/Nagasaki survivor