ROME (AP) -

Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday defended Italy’s decision to send boatloads of potential asylum seekers back to Libya and criticized the idea of a multiethnic Italian nation.

The premier, upholding his conservative coalition’s crackdown on immigration, told a news conference only those who met conditions for political asylum and set foot on Italian soil would be allowed into the country. Italian territory included territorial waters, Berlusconi noted.

Previous, left-leaning governments "opened the doors to clandestine migrants coming from other countries, with an idea of an multi-ethnic Italy," Berlusconi said. That kind of society "is not our idea."

The center-left opposition blasted Berlusconi’s defense of the immigration crackdown.

"Yes, Mr. Premier, we have a different idea of Italy,

multiethnic, pluralistic, free," said Giovanna Melandri, a Democratic Party leader.

"A country in which the color of the skin, the race or the religion doesn’t matter, but, rather, honesty and sincerity of heart do," Melandri said in a statement.

On Thursday, Italian coast guard and police boats took 227 migrants to the port of Tripoli, Libya, after they were picked up in waters Sicily and Malta. Italy contends the migrants set sail in smugglers’ boats from Libyan shores.