ROME, September 27 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Few days after a similar threat by his French counterpart, Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu warned Saturday, September 27, that "either mosques respect the law or they close."

In statements carried by the BBC radio, Pisanu said: "We will not permit Italian mosques to transform into centers of secret financing and recruitment of Islamist fighters."

The minister vocalized similar threats in an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper published Thursday, September 25.

A spokesman for the Islamic Cultural Center in Milan cast doubts on the criteria to be used in determining possible legal violations that could result in the closure of mosques, said the British broadcast.

"Mosques are places of worship and if you close them because someone who committed a crime happened to enter the mosque then by the same logic we would have to shut down Churches frequented by members of the Italian mafia," he averred.

Pisanu also said he planned to follow France's example of setting up a council of moderate Muslims to communicate with state authorities, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"Nicolas Sarkozy (French interior minister) explained to me that there is a clear link between the opening of dialogue with moderate Islam and the 22 percent reduction in violence in Paris suburbs," Pisanu said.

"And even if it is with different methods, I want to do the same thing in Italy - hold dialogue with the large majority of moderate Muslims who have come here to find bread and work," the minister added.

Sarkozy, a conservative whose country is home to five million Muslims, threatened Thursday, September 18, to expel Muslim "radicals" and to close mosques preaching "Islamic fundamentalism."

"Mosques where fundamentalism is preached will be shut down, imams who express radical views will be expelled and speakers who do not guarantee respect for the Republic's rules will see their entrance visas refused," he thundered.

And last Friday, Denmark's right-wing government a plan to curb the activities of "radical" religious leaders, which politicians said was apparently aimed primarily at Muslim scholars.