Libya – Gentiloni-Kerry bilateral

Italy and the United States have pledged to work together intensively over the coming weeks in an effort to garner the international community’s fullest support for the formation of a government of national unity in Libya. The announcement came from Minister Paolo Gentiloni following a bilateral meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in the margins of a Nato ministerial meeting in Brussels. Gentiloni also said that the U.S. Secretary of State had offered confirmation of how deeply appreciated Italy’s commitment to the anti-Daesh coalition was, pointing out that Italy is seeking to strengthen its training of the Iraqi police forces to which the coalition attributes such enormous importance. Regarding Libya, the minister underscored that the choice certainly fell to the Libyans, and observed that Italian and United States efforts underpinned those of UN special envoy Martin Kobler as he works with the various Libyan parties, because Italy and the United States were surely able to make a decisive contribution to those parties’ reaching agreement. Gentiloni, who also met today with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, expressed the hope that the extremely serious downing of the Russian jet would not have negative repercussions or obstruct the path opened in Vienna to a political settlement to the Syria crisis.