Italy's Premier Monti says can't accept Berlusconi offer to head center-right ticket in vote

ROME – Italian Premier Mario Monti is spurning Silvio Berlusconi's offer to run on a center-right ticket backed by the media mogul in February elections.

Monti told a news conference in Rome on Sunday that his predecessor's flipping back and forth between condemning the government's economic policies and then praising the premier convinced him that "I couldn't accept his offer."

Monti didn't immediately say if he might run on his own ticket 13 months after his non-elected government was appointed to save Italy from the eurozone debt crisis.