Berlusconi Pushes the Vatican Peace Effort, as Moscow Takes Note

Jan. 25, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—In an interview today with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said that while his solidarity with the West and NATO cannot be questioned, he is “distressed that nobody but the Pope and the Holy See seems to have solutions that go towards a peaceful solution of a conflict for which we are paying with an intolerable number of lives, suffering as well economic damage to the entire world.”

His comments were covered by RT, which reported them, and which wrote that the Vatican “has on numerous occasions called for a peaceful end to the fighting and has expressed readiness to facilitate negotiations between Moscow and Kiev. Last year, Pope Francis called on President Vladimir Putin to stop Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, and urged his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to be ‘open to serious proposals for peace.’ ”

Earlier on Jan. 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had spontaneously referred to Berlusconi in a press conference. Lavrov, as reported by Italian news agency ANSA, said that Berlusconi had made a contribution in an effort to “building relations” between Russia and NATO. Specifically, Lavrov stressed that as Prime Minister, Berlusconi “started the summit in Pratica di Mare in 2002,” which gave birth to the NATO-Russia Council.

Berlusconi is currently leader of Forza Italia party, one of the three coalition partners backing the Meloni government.