ROME -- Italy said it had urged NATO to investigate claims that six Italian soldiers who died after serving in the Balkans were killed by exposure to depleted uranium from spent ammunition fired by NATO troops.

Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said in an interview published in La Repubblica newspaper that alarm over the so-called Balkan syndrome was "more than legitimate."

"This is a very delicate situation," Amato said. "We've always known that [depleted uranium] was used in Kosovo but not in Bosnia. We've always known that it was a danger only in absolutely exceptional circumstances like, for example, picking up a fragment with a hand on which there was an open wound, while in normal circumstances it isn't dangerous at all."

He added: "But now we're starting to have a justified fear that things aren't that simple."

The six Italians who have died since returning from the Balkans all suffered from leukemia. The latest casualty was a 24-year-old soldier from Sicily who died in November after serving twice in Bosnia but never in Kosovo.

On Friday, Belgium called for European Union defense ministers to discuss health problems suffered by peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia, while Portugal has ordered medical tests for its military and civilian personnel serving in Kosovo to check for exposure to radiation.

Reuters