Italy has been advised to stop the escalation against Egypt over the death of Italian student Guilio Regeni, the chief of the Egyptian Parliament’s foreign affairs committee said Sunday.
In statements reported by MENA, the state news agency, Mohamed El-Orabi said in a committee meeting following his visit to Italy that he underlined the importance of continuing a dialogue in order to contain the crisis over the murder of the Italian PhD student.
Al-Oraby added that he asked the Italian side to look for ideas that were "out of the box" during his visit, where he was attending the meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly-Union for the Mediterranean (PA-UfM) held in the Italian Senate in Rome earlier in July.
He was attending the meeting on behalf of parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Al.
The Egyptian MP’s visit comes following an Italian decision to halt supplying Egypt with spare parts for F-16 fighter planes to protest the country's handling of the Regini case.
Italy's decision, adopted by the Italian parliament 7 July, came in response to what it says is Egypt's failure to cooperate in the investigation into the murder of Regeni, whose body was found on outskirts of Cairo with signs of torture in January.
The Italian move is considered the first commercial measure taken by Italy against Egypt over the issue.
Egypt’s foreign ministry said it regretted the decision, adding that it would “negatively affect cooperation in the field of countering illegal immigration in the Mediterranean and in dealing with the situation in Libya and other fields where Italy has received Egyptian support.”
Egypt said the Italian move was “not consistent with the level of cooperation that has existed between investigative authorities in both countries since the beginning of the case."a
