Egypt’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu-Zeid has said that the Assistant Minister for Protocol Affairs Ayman Mosharafa held a recent meeting with acting Italian ambassador to Cairo Stefano Catani to discuss the Italian authorities’ seizure of 118 smuggled Egyptian artefacts in May 2017 in a diplomatic parcel belonging to an Italian national.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry is keen, Mr Abu-Zeid said, to uncover all facts related to the incident, especially noting that the Egyptian ambassador in Rome was informed about the matter in March 2018, 10 months after the smuggled artefacts were seized. This, he said, raised several questions on the cause or causes the delay, for which the Egyptian government needed answers in light of the close ties binding Cairo and Rome.
The Egyptian diplomat also inquired about the identity of the person to whom the diplomatic parcel containing the smuggled artifacts belongs, and called for completing the relevant investigations as soon as possible. “Cairo is looking forward to Rome’s cooperation in this regard,” he said.
Meanwhile, the acting Italian ambassador said he has contacted the authorities concerned in his country in order to accelerate the results of the investigation.
Watani International
26 May 2018