“Happy to be in Italy to underline the importance of transatlantic unity and the strong relationship between the United States and Italy”. The American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has already met the Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio at a working lunch, landed in Rome after his visit to France. “Ready to cooperate on G20 priorities and international security issues,” Blinken said. “Three days will begin that will make our country a crossroads of important decisions at a global level”, commented Di Maio who, a little curiosity, paid homage to the Secretary of State with a bottle of Primitivo wine (“an authentic taste of Southern Italy”).
The presence of the American “foreign minister” is linked to the plenary ministerial meeting of the anti-Daesh Coalition which will be held tomorrow for the first time in the capital at the new Rome Fair: to be presided over, in fact, by our foreign ministers and the US one. . The summit is expected to be attended by delegations from around 100 countries and more than 40 ministers from those joining the Coalition: among others, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg and EU High Representative Borrell, as well as some invited African countries as observers. The meeting will be an opportunity to renew the collective commitment of the members of the Coalition to the lasting defeat of Daesh and to prevent any attempt to recover. Then we will move to Matera for the G20 of foreign ministers
In anticipation of tomorrow’s meeting, Blinken met in Rome with the heads of food safety agencies based in the Italian capital, namely the executive director of the World Food Program (Wfp), David Beasley, and the director general of FAO, Qu Dongyu. . Blinken said “the importance of fighting global hunger as well as addressing its main causes.”