{"id":3320,"date":"2023-10-23T04:25:34","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T02:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/?p=3320"},"modified":"2023-10-23T04:36:52","modified_gmt":"2023-10-23T02:36:52","slug":"statement-of-the-italian-president-of-the-council-of-the-ministers-hon-giorgia-meloni-at-the-cairo-peace-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/news\/dall_ambasciata\/2023\/10\/statement-of-the-italian-president-of-the-council-of-the-ministers-hon-giorgia-meloni-at-the-cairo-peace-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Statement of the President of the Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni, at the Cairo Summit for Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

COURTESY TRANSLATION<\/span><\/p>\n

“Good morning everyone,<\/p>\n

I would like to\u00a0thank\u00a0you,\u00a0President al-Sisi<\/strong>\u00a0for promoting\u00a0and hosting\u00a0this extremely important\u00a0and timely\u00a0summit here in Cairo. A meeting that is being held in the wake of the terrible attack by Hamas last October 7, which came down on unarmed civilians with unprecedented savagery, which leaves us horrified and must be condemned without any ambiguity.<\/p>\n

It was only right for Italy to be here today. It was right to be here because of the historic role that my nation has always played, and plays, as\u00a0a bridge of dialogue between Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East<\/strong>. It was only right to be here because of the possibilities for\u00a0a\u00a0dialogue that this summit holds, despite the fact that the starting positions\u00a0can\u00a0sometimes\u00a0seem distant.\u00a0Because even if our initial points of view may not seem perfectly aligned, our interests are, however, perfectly aligned. The interest of all those sitting around this table is that what is happening in Gaza does not become a much broader conflict, does not become\u00a0a war of religion,\u00a0does not become a clash of civilizations, maintaining the brave efforts made over the years to normalize relations.<\/p>\n

The impression I have is that the modalities with which Hamas decided to hit Israel were\u00a0not by chance. It was not to defend the rights of the Palestinian people but rather\u00a0to\u00a0force\u00a0Israel into\u00a0a reaction against Gaza that\u00a0would\u00a0cut at the root any\u00a0possibility\u00a0of\u00a0dialogue creating\u00a0an unsolvable\u00a0gap between\u00a0the Arab countries, Israel\u00a0and the West<\/strong>, ending in a definite way peace and\u00a0the\u00a0well-being\u00a0for all citizens, including those who we say we \u00a0must defend and represent. This means that\u00a0all of us here\u00a0are the target,\u00a0and I believe we\u00a0cannot\u00a0fall into\u00a0this trap.\u00a0This would be extremely stupid.\u00a0This is the reason why it is important to be here and\u00a0to\u00a0continue\u00a0to reason and pursue\u00a0dialogue.<\/p>\n

In this speech I would like to bring a few points to your attention.<\/p>\n

Firstly\u00a0terrorism.\u00a0Terrorism\u00a0<\/strong>has affected the Muslim world even more than it has affected the West. The terrorist actions that have occurred over time have actually weakened the legitimate claims and demands of peoples, especially in the Muslim world. Into this dynamic, comes the conscious choice of Hamas, which uses terrorism to try to disrupt any process of dialogue and to prevent the prospect of arriving, even for the Palestinian people,\u00a0to a concrete\u00a0solution.\u00a0No cause can\u00a0justify terrorism.\u00a0No cause, no matter how good,\u00a0will\u00a0ever justify\u00a0knowingly prearranged and organized terrorist aggression aimed at targeting innocent civilians. Never will any good cause be able to justify\u00a0massacres against women or the\u00a0beheading\u00a0of\u00a0babies, purposely filmed by a video camera.\u00a0No cause.\u00a0In the face of such terrorist aggression, a state is fully entitled to claim its right to exist, to reassert its right to defend itself and to ensure the security of its citizens and borders. But a State\u2019s reaction must never be motivated by a feeling of revenge.\u00a0This is why States are what they are, our point of reference.\u00a0A state must base its reaction on precise security reasons,\u00a0commensurating\u00a0the use\u00a0force and protecting\u00a0the civilian population. This is the boundary within which a state’s reaction to terrorist aggression must remain\u00a0and I trust\u00a0that this is also the will of the State of\u00a0Israel.<\/p>\n

Our immediate priority remains\u00a0humanitarian access<\/strong>, which is essential to prevent further suffering of the civilian population but also mass exoduses that would contribute to\u00a0destabilizing this region.\u00a0The mediation work undertaken by many of the actors present at this Conference is extremely important in this sense.\u00a0That is why I welcomed the European Commission’s decision to triple humanitarian aid to Gaza to more than 75 million euros. Italy is\u00a0also\u00a0working\u00a0to increase bilateral aid. This increase in resources must be accompanied by\u00a0a\u00a0very strict monitoring\u00a0on the use of such resources.\u00a0The news coming in since this morning are encouraging and I thank President\u00a0Sisi\u00a0for this as well.<\/p>\n

We are very concerned about the\u00a0fate of the hostages<\/strong>\u00a0in the hands of Hamas, including Italians among them. We call for the immediate release of all hostages, first and foremost, women, children and the elderly. We\u00a0must\u00a0continue to work together for the exit of the most fragile individuals and foreign civilians from Gaza.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0must do all we can\u00a0to\u00a0prevent an escalation of this crisis<\/strong>, to avoid losing control of what can happen, as the consequences would be unimaginable.\u00a0The most serious way to achieve this is to promote\u00a0resumption of a political initiative\u00a0for a concrete, structural,\u00a0long-term solution\u00a0with a precisely defined\u00a0time line, based on the “two peoples, two states” perspective. The Palestinian people must\u00a0have the right\u00a0to be\u00a0a self-governing Nation,\u00a0in freedom, alongside a State of Israel to which the full right to existence and security must be recognized.\u00a0To this end, Italy is ready to do absolutely whatever is necessary.<\/p>\n

Thank you again, President Sisi”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COURTESY TRANSLATION “Good morning everyone, I would like to\u00a0thank\u00a0you,\u00a0President al-Sisi\u00a0for promoting\u00a0and hosting\u00a0this extremely important\u00a0and timely\u00a0summit here in Cairo. A meeting that is being held in the wake of the terrible attack by Hamas last October 7, which came down on unarmed civilians with unprecedented savagery, which leaves us horrified and must be condemned without any […]","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-3320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-politica-estera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3320"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3326,"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320\/revisions\/3326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ambtokyo.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}