(Adnkronos) – Italy wants to extend its “already extensive” cooperation with “strategic” Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian republics, premier Giorgia Meloni said on Friday at the start of talks in Astana with Kazakh president Qasym-Jomart Toqaev.
“Italy recognizes “the importance of this country, of this region, and the strategic value of our cooperation,” Meloni said.
“We know that this cooperation is already very broad, but we think we can expand it further in the fields in which we are working together…critical raw materials…not just oil and gas,” Meloni underlined.
“Our cooperation in the energy sector can make a difference – in the more traditional fields as well as the innovative ones,” Meloni went on.
“We are committed to the principle of technological neutrality to guarantee sustainable economic and social systems,” she said.
Italy is at the front line of efforts to restore the ecosystem of the shrinking Aral Sea – once the world’s fourth largest lake – Meloni pointed out.
“It is our duty to protect it,” she said.
Italy’s climate fund is “a key tool that we want to enhance, to be able to boost further joint projects,” said Meloni.
Meloni’s visit to Astana – her first as Italy’s prime minister – is “substantive” and not just a formal one, she stated earlier at the Astana International Forum.
“It the first summit between Italy and the five Central Asian nations,” she told the forum.
“Italy is the first European Union nation to have decided to invest in relations with Central Asia and its individual countries,” Meloni noted.
