Silvio Berlusconi\u2019s party, Forza Italia, will urge the government to lift anti-Russian sanctions, which are crippling bilateral ties and harming Italy\u2019s national interests, the former Prime Minister said after his meeting with President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow we will present a motion calling on [the] government not to continue the sanctions against Russia, sanctions which harm our interests, causing significant financial losses,\u201d Silvio Berlusconi said after his meeting with Putin at Fiumicino airport in Rome.<\/p>\n
Berlusconi also said his Forza Italia party was planning to urge the Italian government to \u201ccommit itself\u201d in convincing other European countries to follow its lead in lifting sanctions and \u201cconvince our American friends that the return to the atmosphere of the Cold War is inadmissible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue of Western sanctions and bilateral trade ties took center stage of Putin\u2019s short visit to Italy.<\/p>\n
While meeting with the current Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Milan, Putin was quick to point out that Italian companies had lost more than $1 billion due to the restrictive measures, while the trading volume shrank by one quarter in the first three months of 2015. The Russian president said that the sanctions also affected Russian-Italian military cooperation.<\/p>\n
In Rome, meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, the leaders discussed the necessity of maintaining strategic bilateral relations in \u201call spheres\u201d and not allowing them to \u201cbecome hostage\u201d of current difficulties, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He added both Mattarella and Putin agreed \u201call countries in Europe are paying too high a price for the ongoing internal Ukrainian conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mattarella\u2019s stance seems to echo statements by the Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni who recently said that \u201cItaly can\u2019t afford to close the doors to Russia\u201d and \u201ccan\u2019t cut ties\u201d with Moscow.<\/p>\n
Berlusconi got a chance to meet Putin right before his departure to Moscow, and reminisce about the good old days of positive NATO-Russia relations.<\/p>\n
The 78-year-old Italian said he remembers the times when world peace was fragile between the two nuclear superpowers. Berlusconi and Putin recalled the 2002 dialogue and cooperation, which established the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), which the former Italian Prime Minister said had put an end to the nuclear \u201cnightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berlusconi stressed the need to normalize relations between the West and Russia, insisting that is vital for cooperation on a global scale.<\/p>\n
The 78 year-old said he is happy that Putin found time to visit Italy and even meet him personally, announcing that he will soon return the favor and come to Moscow. Berlusconi and Putin share a long personal connection over the years, and according to the Russian President, the bond of friendship they share doesn\u2019t depend on political necessities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The members of the Forza Italia party plan to come forth with the initiative that envisages the lifting of sanctions imposed on Russia by Italy, party leader Silvio Berlusconi said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":19371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[10483,2376,66,1061,4056,7484,67],"class_list":["post-19366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-forza-italia","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-sanctions","tag-silvio-berlusconi","tag-ukraine","tag-vladimir-putin"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/poetinsilvio.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19367,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19366\/revisions\/19367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}