ROME - SUSPENDING markets should not be considered as a tool to deal with global financial turmoil, a senior European bourse executive was quoted as saying in Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper on Sunday.

'It's not a hypothesis to take into consideration. One must always allow the possibility of exchanging shares for cash, because this is a release valve for tension,' said Massimo Capuano, chief executive of Milan's Borsa Italiana and deputy chief executive of the London Stock Exchange .

He is also chairman of the World Federation of Exchanges, which is holding meetings in Milan this week.

'Above all, blocking negotiations on regulated markets would not stop trades from taking place elsewhere, in a context of less transparency.'

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Friday that there was talk of suspending markets but later played down the idea that this was a serious policy suggestion.

Britain's Sunday Times newspaper said trading at the London Stock Exchange could be suspended on Monday to give the market time to digest the impact of massive recapitalisation plans the daily said would be announced for major British banks.

But the LSE downplayed that prospect. 'My information is that the market will open on Monday,' a spokesman for the exchange told Reuters. -- REUTERS