Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told parliament on Tuesday that Turkey's offensive against Kurdish forces in Syria was having "devastating effects on the humanitarian level". Di Maio said the death toll was "unacceptable". "Turkey is solely responsible for the escalation," he said.
"It must immediately suspend military operations". He said that the government will pass a decree to suspend future arms exports to Turkey and will assess "existing contracts" for weapons sales to Ankara too.
Di Maio said that Italy expresses "thanks and gratitude" to Syria's Kurds for how they found against ISIS. He said the threat the Islamist group posed remained "concrete and extremely serious" and argued Turkey's offensive could help revive it.
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