Senior Italian Lawmaker Says Lega Party Hindering Cooperation With Russia

GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th February, 2020) President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Senate Vito Petrocelli criticized Italy's right-wing Lega party for being reluctant about strengthening relations with Russia, which plays an important role in resolving the conflicts in the middle East and fighting against global terrorism.

According to Petrocelli, last week, the Italian Senate should have approved a motion on the future relations between Russia and Italy, but "the Lega made the vote impossible because they did not provide the minimum number of parliamentarians."

"The resolution addresses the future of friendly relations between Italy and Russia and explicitly calls on the government to take action to overcome sanctions for a greater cooperation in peacemaking in the Mediterranean. In my view, Russia is a key partner for the resolution of the crisis in Libya, Syria and in general in the fight against terrorism. This is clearly not the case for the Lega," Petrocelli stated.

Relations between Russia with its Western neighbors have been exceptionally fraught in recent years, mostly owing to European sanctions against Russia over Crimea and the Donbas conflict, to which Moscow responded with countersanctions.

In January, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that Rome was helping spearhead efforts to scale back the European Union's sanctions on Moscow, stressing futility of penalizing Moscow for the Ukrainian crisis.