Italy will keep supporting its longstanding friend and ally Lebanon, a country that is key to the Middle East's peace and stability, deputy foreign minister Marina Sereni said on Monday during a visit.
"I assured President Aoun that Italy, which shares deep bonds of friendship, history and culture with Lebanon, will continue to show it solidarity," Sereni said in a statement after talks with its president, Michel Aoun.
"At this difficulty moment made worse by the (COVID-19) pandemic, Italy is close to the Lebanese people, whom we swiftly helped after the explosions at the port of Beirut, providing financial aid, emergency items, teams of experts and a field hospital," the statement added.
On 4 August last year, 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that was unsafely stored at Beirut's port exploded, killing at least 207 people, injuring 7,500, causing 15 billion dollars of damage and leaving some 300,000 people homeless, aggravating hardship in crisis-hit Lebanon.
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