I thank President Putin for the words he addressed to Italy and for the welcome extended to me and to the delegation accompanying me during this visit.
This visit has allowed and enabled us to dialogue on the main points in various sectors of our bilateral agenda as well as on the most relevant and urgent international issues.
Through President Putin, I renewed Italy's heartfelt condolences to the Russian people for the attack that hit defenceless civilians in the metro of St. Petersburg. The event further reinforces our conviction of the absolute need for an ever broader, closer and more determined cooperation among all Countries and between Russia and Italy in order to prevent the rise of radicalism and to combat the barbarity of terrorism.
We acknowledge with satisfaction our positive and productive bilateral dialogue in all sectors. Our relations are based on mutual trust and respect.
They are testified by the frequency of our political contacts, the depth of our economic and energy-related relations - which we hope will increasingly expand and diversify thanks to our converging interests and the complementarity of our economies - as well as by the traditional vivaciousness of our cultural relations and innovative partnerships, for example in combating crime, in the space sector and in the field of science and technology. In this particular area, we look with particular favour at the renewal - during this visit - of the agreement on basic scientific research between the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna.
Culture has historically linked Russians and Italians, and traditionally particularly young people. Every Country's investment on youth - on their mobility, their skills, their capacity to express themselves and their creativity - is of absolute importance and likely to produce a positive fallout. And it is essentially based on a common cultural sensitivity, the sensitivity - which I again thank you for - that induced Russia to restore the monument in L'Aquila.
Of course, we reviewed the major crisis scenarios.
The multiple international hotbeds of tension and conflict and the worrying tendency towards polarised negotiating positions that we are witnessing must lead us to intensely ponder over the need to multiply responsible attitudes and decisions and to consolidate initiatives leading to dialogue.
With respect to Libya, Italy is convinced that there is no military solution to the crisis and that the Skhirat Agreement and the consequent unanimous resolution by the UN Security Council constitute the legitimate framework for a political solution. We count on Moscow's constructive attitude and its full understanding of the great importance that the stabilisation of Libya and of the whole Mediterranean has for Italy.
With respect to Syria, last week's tragic events show the urgent need to find shared solutions to the crisis, solutions that must issue from a multi-level dialogue between currently opposed Syrian parties, and between players at regional level and within the entire international community.
We must work for a sustainable political solution under the aegis of the UN and following the roadmap plotted by the Geneva talks. We owe it to the hundreds of thousands of casualties caused by senseless violence; we owe it to the millions of refugees and displaced persons.
The use of chemical weapons - or in any case weapons banned under the Geneva Convention - is unacceptable. We hope that Moscow - like everyone else - might exercise all its influence to avoid that similar attacks be repeated and we believe that it is fundamental to apply the principle of establishing the responsibility of the perpetrators of the most serious offences and of prosecuting them.
We hope that what happened will immediately prompt all the players in the crisis, and especially the most influential actors, to make joint efforts to overcome the present intolerable situation.
Italy is ready to do its share, both within the framework of the considerable efforts made by the European Union - of which the Brussels Conference is an encouraging development - and within the UN Security Council.
We naturally also addressed the situation in Ukraine. Italy is very concerned over the absence of significant developments on the ground and of positive evolutions at political level. We believe that no one, neither Russia, nor Europe, nor Ukraine, would benefit from a situation of prolonged instability in the heart of the continent.
Therefore, while expressing appreciation for the extremely relevant and invaluable role that the OSCE plays on the ground, we reaffirm our confidence in the negotiation efforts in the Normandy Format under the Minsk Agreements, hoping that Russia will exercise all its influence to consolidate the ceasefire to facilitate the speedy de-escalation and stabilisation of the Country. This is a call that we address to all the players in that crisis scenario.
I deeply thank President Putin for his welcome and for the friendship shown during this visit and wish him all the best.
