Minister for Foreign Affairs Emma Bonino received Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu today at the foreign ministry in Rome, who is on a tour of European capitals. Their meeting centred on developments in Egypt and Syria.
Noting that the conclusions of the recent extraordinary Foreign Affairs Council were a reflection of the European Union’s capacity for a unified reaction to the Egyptian crisis, Minister Bonino asserted that Italy would continue to endorse the re-examination of Europe’s cooperation policy with Egypt launched two days ago in Brussels.
Minister Bonino also pointed out the immediate need for the international community to make all possible efforts at mediation, for the purpose of persuading Egyptian political actors to undertake negotiations capable of ending the state of emergency and averting further violence; the minister highlighted the important contribution that Turkey could make in the pursuit of such an objective.
The two ministers also shared the same deep concern and equally condemned last Wednesday’s events outside Damascus. Minister Bonino reiterated the urgency of providing the international community with accurate and objective information in that regard, appealing to the Syrian authorities’ sense of duty to consent to the immediate and free access to the area concerned by UN inspectors, whose investigations, the minister underscored, would form the basis for evaluating the terms and possible options of an international response.
