Italy's foreign minister Angelino Alfano will be in Washington next week to attend a meeting of the US-led global military coalition fighting the Islamic State jihadist group, he said on Wednesday
"Battling IS is a priority for the government," Alfano told lawmakers during question time in the lower house of parliament.
"We are one of the one of the countries that is most engaged in the international coalition against IS," he added.
"And our commitment will remain until this threat...is permanently defeated," Alfano said.
He did not give the precise dates of the anti-IS coalition meeting in Washington.
Italy and 67 other countries belong to the coalition, which claims to have significantly weakened IS since the US announced its formation in September, 2014.
Italy's prime minister Paolo Gentiloni said last month that IS could be defeated this year.
IS has been increasingly on the back foot since Russian air raids began in Syria in 2015 and the coalition strikes against IS and killed prominent leaders such as IS spokesman Abu Mohammad al Adnani (in August 2016), according to a report by the government's department of information security (DIS) in January.
