By Gazette staff Cairo is keen on boosting co-operation with Rome in all domains, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said during his talks with a senior Italian government official on Wednesday. President Sisi told the Deputy Italian Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development, Mr Luigi Di Maio, that Cairo was keen on closer relations with Rome through implementing joint investment and development projects. During the talks, which were attended by Oil Minister Tarek el-Mulla, Trade and Industry Minister Amr Nassar, Major General Abbas Kamel, the head of the General Intelligence Agency and the Italian Ambassador in Cairo, Mr Di Maio said that he had discussed with President Sisi a host of regional and international issues of mutual concern. The talks also dealt with ways of strengthening Egyptian-Italian ties in all domains including in exerting joint counter-terrorism and illegal migration efforts, Presidency Spokesman Ambassador Bassam Radi said. President Sisi and Mr Di Maio reviewed the latest developments pertaining to the two countries' efforts to resolve the Libyan crisis and ways of combatting illegal migration via the Mediterranean Sea, Ambassador Radi said. On the Libyan crisis, President Sisi and Mr Di Maio agreed on the need to rebuild the country's state institutions, including its national army, parliament and government in accordance with a UN-brokered agreement that was reached in the Moroccan town of Skhirat on December 17, 2015. The deal calls for establishing a nine-member presidential council that will form a national unity government. Mr Di Maio, who praised the Egyptian-Italian ties, said that his country valued the efforts of the Cairo government in finding a political solution to the Libyan crisis. He also praised the Egyptian efforts to combat terrorism and illegal migration. Ambassador Radi said that the Sisi-Di Maio talks dealt with the latest developments pertaining to the on-going investigations into the murder of an Italian student, Giulio Regeni, whose body was found in a Giza street two years ago. President Sisi reassured Mr Di Maio that the Cairo government was fully committed to bringing those behind the killing of Regeni to justice, Ambassador Radi said. President Sisi confirmed Egypt's full commitment to working with the Italian authorities on establishing the identity of the perpetrators and bringing them to justice, Ambassador Radi added. Mr Di Maio praised the on-going co-operation between the Italian authorities and the Egyptian prosecutors, who he said, had been working together on the Regeni case. He added that the Egyptian authorities were fully co-operating with the Italian officials at every level on the case.
