Stabilising Syria and the Middle East is crucial to Italy's national security and "a credible and inclusive" political process is the only way to end conflict in the region, foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said on Wednesday.
"Stabilising Syria and the (Middle East) region is of strategic value to our national security," Di Maio told members of Italy's upper house Senate.
His comments came as United Nations backed talks between Syria's government, opposition and various sectors of civil society which are aimed at trying to draft a new constitution began in Geneva on Wednesday.
The talks between the 150 delegates will be "Syrian-owned and Syrian-led", could lead to reforms and elections, and possible peace negotiations to end Syria's devastating eight-year-old civil war, according to the UN.
