ROME, October 22. /TASS/. Italy calls for Russia’s return to the Group of Seven (G7) as Moscow is an important participant in the process of solving global crises, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told a news conference at the Foreign Press Association in Rome on Monday.
"If President [Vladimir] Putin returns to the G7 negotiating table, we will be able to solve international problems, which haven’t been settled so far," Conte told reporters, noting that he has been sticking to this stance since assuming office.
Touching on the anti-Russian sanctions, the Italian premier noted that he issued an order to support the sanctions as their cancellation was linked to the implementation of the Minsk peace deal on Ukraine. "We should bear in mind that sanctions are not an end in themselves and should not hit civil society."
Conte noted that during his trip to Moscow on October 24 a number of agreements will be signed, aimed at stepping up bilateral economic cooperation.
The G7 is a group of seven largest advanced economies in the world - the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States, France and Japan. After Russia joined the group in 1997, the format was renamed G8. However, as Russian-Western relations deteriorated amid the crisis in Ukraine in 2014, the seven nations decided to return to the G7 format.
