Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Angelino Alfano announced on Monday that Italian ambassador to Egypt will return to take up his position in Cairo on 14 September, state-run Middle East News Agency reported.
Alfano said that this step was taken in light of the cooperation of Egyptian authorities with their Italian counterparts in investigating the death of Italian Student Giulio Regeni in Cairo in 2016.
Additionally, Egypt’s ambassador to Italy Hesham Badr will also resume in his post in Italy on the same date.
The announcement of Alfano was made during a parliamentarian session of the Italian Foreign Affairs committee.
According to Italian media outlets, Alfano said that Egypt and Italy are two inseparable countries and there is no way for them not to have high-level diplomatic and political dialogue. He added that pursuance of the truth of what happened to Regeni will continue.
The bilateral relations between Egypt and Italy suffered a big blow after Italian researcher and student Regeni had been killed in Cairo.
The Italian government rejected several claims by the Egyptian authorities in regards to the killing of Regeni, and accused Egypt’s ministry of interior of killing Regeni. However, Egypt denies this claim.
A few weeks following the killing of Regeni, Egypt’s authorities announced that gang members were killed in a shootout after they had been proved to have the belongings of Regeni. Italy refused this narrative as well and insisted on proceeding with the investigations.
Earlier in March, the family of Regeni appealed to Pope Francis in line with his visit to Cairo to raise the topic with Egyptian officials.
Regeni’s case sparked local and international concerns on the status of human rights in Egypt.
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