Renzi sees Russia playing key role in Libya

(ANSA) - Rome, March 5 - Premier Matteo Renzi said Thursday that Russia can play a key role in solving the crisis in Libya after meeting President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. "Russia's role can be decisive, given its history and its role in the Security Council," Renzi told a news conference. "An incisive international response is needed". Libya has been in chaos since the end of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011 and there is alarm about the spread of jihadists linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) fundamentalist insurgency in the north African country. Libya's northern coast is only hundreds of kilometres from Italy's southern-most islands and ISIS jihadists warned that they were now "south of Rome" in a video showing the execution of a number of Egyptian Coptic Christians last month.
    Furthermore, the chaos and a breakdown in security has allowed human smugglers to flourish in Libya and send thousands of migrants to Italy.
    The international community's priority must be the fight against "terrorism, fanaticism and those who want to destroy the values that our communities are founded on," Renzi said Thursday.
    Russia backs the UN on Libya, where "the situation has got worse," Putin said after talks with the Italian premier.
    Renzi also said Thursday in the Russian capital that "there is no alternative to a political and diplomatic solution" on the Ukraine crisis at the start of talks with Premier Dmitri Medvedev. Renzi arrived Wednesday from Kiev, where he met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Renzi laid flowers on the bridge where opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was assassinated on February 27. In an interview with TASS Russian news agency after his meeting with Medvedev, Renzi said the Minsk accord between Russia and Ukraine "was a step forward". "We must all respect...the Minsk agreement," Renzi said.
    "We must work on a daily basis for the premises and promises of Minsk to become a reality". The Minsk protocol between Russia and Ukraine was brokered by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande in Moscow in January. It calls for a ceasefire and Constitutional reforms to ensure the rights of people in eastern Ukraine are respected.
    Kiev forces have been engaged in a bloody conflict with pro-Russia separatist rebels in its eastern regions since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March last year. Renzi did not raise the case of a Ukrainian pilot on a hunger strike in a Russian prison with top officials there, the Kremlin said. One day earlier, Poroshenko said in a Twitter post that he had asked Renzi to raise the "painful" subject in his meetings with Putin.
    Ukraine is requesting the immediate release of pilot Nadia Savchenko, held on charges of involvement in the murder of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine. Savchenko was a member of the Ukraine military captured by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine last June and was handed over to Russian officials who charged her with the murders. She has been on a hunger strike for 81 days and has become the subject of an intense social media campaign for her release.
    A spokesman for Putin, Dmitri Peskov, said that although the subject was not discussed by Renzi and Putin, the Kremlin would be responding to a letter from Poroshenko.
    Renzi also announced in Moscow that Putin will attend Milan Expo 2015 on June 10.