Russia-Italy Working Group On Fighting New Challenges To Convene In Rome June 25 - Moscow

A meeting of a Russian-Italian interministerial working group on fighting new challenges such as terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime will take place in the Italian capital city of Rome next week, Aleksey Paramonov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's First European Department, said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th June, 2019) A meeting of a Russian-Italian interministerial working group on fighting new challenges such as terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime will take place in the Italian capital city of Rome next week, Aleksey Paramonov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's First European Department, said on Wednesday.

"We believe that Italy can play a positive role in promoting our dialogue with the European Union on a range of areas. It refers to so-called challenges coming from the South - terrorism, crime, drug trafficking, illegal migration, stemming from the Greater Mediterranean region ... Therefore, today, the activity of the interdepartmental working group on fighting new challenges and threats, the regular session of which will take place on June 25 in Rome, is particularly important," Paramonov said at a conference at the Institute of Europe of the Russian academy of Sciences.

The first meeting of the working group took place in October 2016 and comprised discussions about the situations in Syria, Iraq and Libya, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The group met for a second time in December 2017 and that time focused on combating terrorism, extremism and radicalization, particularly as it relates to the Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia).