Italy's Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero is due in Egypt on Wednesday for talks with government officials on the fight against terrorism and the Middle East situation, the Italian embassy announced Monday.
The statement, quoted by AFP, said that Ruggiero would meet Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher on Thursday for a working lunch.
"The official talks will include an exchange of views on the current international situation, especially the fight against international terrorism and the Middle East question," the embassy statement said.
They will also discuss "cooperation ... on some African issues."
Egypt and other Arab and Islamic countries were upset last month by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's assertion that Western civilization was superior to Islam.
Berlusconi insisted he had been misquoted and said he was sorry if he caused offence to Arabs and Muslims. The remarks were made the day after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met Berlusconi in Rome. Jordan’s King Abdullah also met with the premier last week.
Berlusconi was criticized by the press in his country and its European partners.
Meanwhile, French President Jacques Chirac denied at a UNESCO conference Monday that the terrorist attacks on the US last month were linked to a "culture clash" between western and Islamic worlds.
Chirac, speaking alongside his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo at the opening of the 31st general conference of UNESCO, said that adopting such a theory would be like "falling into a terrorist-set trap which pits culture against culture, religion against religion." - Albawaba.com
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