Russia's president Vladimir Putin is a "key interlocutor", Italy's populist prime minister Giuseppe Conte said on Thursday in an interview with La Stampa newspaper ahead of a visit to Moscow later this month.
"Every leader want to act in their country's best interests. And it is precisely in this spirit that I will meet Putin in Moscow. I consider him a key interlocutor," said Conte.
"Together with (United States leader Donald) Trump, I immediately backed the idea of inviting Russia back to the G8," Conte said.
"This is not to appease the obscure interests of some political or economic lobby, but out of a concrete sense of reality," he added.
Russia was suspended from the influential G8 bloc after its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Since then the G7 has met in its place.
Conte's talks with Putin on 24 October will cover the main international issues as well bilateral relations," Conte stated on 13 July in a tweet announcing his visit to Moscow following an invitation from Putin.
As part of preparations for Conte's meeting with Putin, Italy's foreign minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi will hold talks in Moscow on Monday with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that will include conflict-wracked Libya, Milanesi told the Italian Senate on Tuesday.
