Italy’s FM meets with Egyptian officials on migration, Libya

Italy’s chief diplomat held talks Sunday with Egyptian and Arab League officials in Cairo that focused on regional security and the conflict in neighboring Libya, as well as sensitive bilateral issues.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he raised with Egypt’s president the case of Giulio Regeni, an Italian graduate student who was kidnapped, tortured, and killed in Cairo in 2016, and that of Patrick George Zaki, an Egyptian activist studying in Bologna who had been detained for nearly two years.

“I asked for and received assurances for strong cooperation on the Regeni and Zaki cases,” Tajani wrote on Twitter. Later in the day, he told a joint news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry that Cairo “is ready to remove roadblocks” to resolve both cases. He did not offer further details.

Tajani said his meeting with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi also covered energy security and economic cooperation in the Mediterranean, but focused “above all” on political instability in Libya and the efforts to stop “irregular immigration” from that country.

The Italian foreign minister also met with Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit.

The Regeni case roiled Cairo’s relations with Rome, with Regeni’s family and Italian authorities accusing Egyptian security forces of torturing and killing him. Egypt’s security services have denied any involvement in Regeni’s abduction or death.