Sergey Lavrov to visit Italy
On December 1-2, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will pay a working visit to the Italian Republic. During his stay in Rome, he will have talks with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, and a separate meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella is also scheduled. The main aim of the visit is to continue an extensive discussion of vital international issues with Italian officials and to outline ways of further developing bilateral cooperation following the agreements reached during President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in St Petersburg in June 2016. Among foreign policy issues, the officials will consider the situations in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine, cooperation with Italy as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2017 and OSCE issues. Italy will hold the presidency of this organisation in 2018. The agenda of the talks also includes the most important issues of Russian-Italian relations in politics and economics, the current state and prospects of interdepartmental cooperation and parliamentary contacts. Italy is one of Russia’s leading political and economic partners in Western Europe with whom we have reached a high level of cooperation in many fields. Under the pressure put on Russia by the West due to the Ukrainian crisis, contacts between the two countries have taken a step back. The Italian leadership supported the anti-Russian sanctions in line with the EU and NATO policy. At the same time, Italian political, business and public circles express an interest in preserving the ample potential of bilateral cooperation built up over many years and maintaining an active Russian-Italian dialogue, including high-level dialogue, and they take practical steps in this direction. A number of Italian regions have adopted resolutions calling for the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions. Considering mutual concern over the negative trends in mutual trade (in 2015 the trade turnover dropped by 36.2 per cent to $30.6 billion, and for the first nine months of 2016, by 41.2 per cent to $14.2 billion) the officials intend to discuss measures to improve trade ties, including progress in the implementation of decisions adopted at the 14th session of the Russian-Italian Council for Economic, Industrial, Monetary and Financial Cooperation held in Rome on October 5, 2016. During his stay in Italy, Mr Lavrov will also visit the Vatican and meet with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Secretary for Relations with States Archbishop Paul Gallagher. They will consider issues of bilateral cooperation and international affairs. On December 2, at Mr Gentiloni’s invitation, Mr Lavrov will speak at the second international conference “Rome Med – Mediterranean Dialogues”. The organiser of the event, like last year, is the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), one of the leading Italian political research centres operating under the guidance of the Italian Foreign Ministry. The forum aims to promote a wide exchange of opinions on a range of issues concerning the Mediterranean region, whose growing instability is escalating threats to international security.
On December 1-2, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will pay a working visit to the Italian Republic. During his stay in Rome, he will have talks with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, and a separate meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella is also scheduled. The main aim of the visit is to continue an extensive discussion of vital international issues with Italian officials and to outline ways of further developing bilateral cooperation following the agreements reached during President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in St Petersburg in June 2016. Among foreign policy issues, the officials will consider the situations in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine, cooperation with Italy as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2017 and OSCE issues. Italy will hold the presidency of this organisation in 2018. The agenda of the talks also includes the most important issues of Russian-Italian relations in politics and economics, the current state and prospects of interdepartmental cooperation and parliamentary contacts. Italy is one of Russia’s leading political and economic partners in Western Europe with whom we have reached a high level of cooperation in many fields. Under the pressure put on Russia by the West due to the Ukrainian crisis, contacts between the two countries have taken a step back. The Italian leadership supported the anti-Russian sanctions in line with the EU and NATO policy. At the same time, Italian political, business and public circles express an interest in preserving the ample potential of bilateral cooperation built up over many years and maintaining an active Russian-Italian dialogue, including high-level dialogue, and they take practical steps in this direction. A number of Italian regions have adopted resolutions calling for the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions. Considering mutual concern over the negative trends in mutual trade (in 2015 the trade turnover dropped by 36.2 per cent to $30.6 billion, and for the first nine months of 2016, by 41.2 per cent to $14.2 billion) the officials intend to discuss measures to improve trade ties, including progress in the implementation of decisions adopted at the 14th session of the Russian-Italian Council for Economic, Industrial, Monetary and Financial Cooperation held in Rome on October 5, 2016. During his stay in Italy, Mr Lavrov will also visit the Vatican and meet with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Secretary for Relations with States Archbishop Paul Gallagher. They will consider issues of bilateral cooperation and international affairs. On December 2, at Mr Gentiloni’s invitation, Mr Lavrov will speak at the second international conference “Rome Med – Mediterranean Dialogues”. The organiser of the event, like last year, is the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), one of the leading Italian political research centres operating under the guidance of the Italian Foreign Ministry. The forum aims to promote a wide exchange of opinions on a range of issues concerning the Mediterranean region, whose growing instability is escalating threats to international security.