Tunisia and Italy share "great preoccupation" over conflict-wracked Libya and back the United Nations special envoy in his mission to broker a deal between its rival factions, Tunisia's foreign minister Khemaies Jhinaoui said on Monday.
"Tunisia and Italy feel great preoccupation at the situation in Libya," Jhinaoui told a presentation in Palermo of the Italian foreign ministry's 2018 cultural programme in the Middle East and North Africa, 'Italy, Culture, Mediterranean'.
"Both countries are supporting the UN secretary general's special envoy Ghassan Salame in continuing talks (in Tunisia) on Libya aimed at reaching some kind of agreement between the various sides," he went on.
Tunisia and Italy are both doing their utmost to reach a peaceful solution that will stabilise Libya and end the turmoil there since the ouster of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Jhinaoui said.
"At present, we are very confident that the discussions held in Tunisia will lead to a positive solution. We are more or less on the same wavelength as Italy."
Jhinaoui was addressing a presentation in Palermo ahead of a two-day meeting there Tuesday on migration and security of the 57 member-states of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The meeting will be attended by OSCE's six Mediterranean partners - Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.
