European trade relations with countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which are playing a double game, are more important than defeating terrorism, says Italian deputy Alessandro Di Battista from the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) party.

The deputy from the Euro-skeptic M5S party which has 109 deputies out of 630 in the lower house of the Italian parliament, expressed anger that little information is available on the financing of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

“They say they do not know exactly how the funding of terrorists from ISIS is carried out. Isn’t it possible for us in 2016 to find this information with all the modern technology? Is it acceptable or is it a gross mockery of common sense,” he asked.

Di Battista pointed to trade between the European Union and some of its more questionable partners as a reason that answers to such questions are not made public.

“It is obvious that many people are aware of how (the terrorists) receive weapons and money, and (who) buys the oil. However, the trade relations of European countries, including Italy, with countries like Saudi Arabia or Turkey, which are leading their double games, are more important than defeating terrorism.”

“I think we should ‘pull the plug’ on terrorism,” he emphasized.

Without mentioning the United States by name, Di Battista criticized the results of the so-called ‘war on terror’ in which “many unjust wars were unleashed.”

“Since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, almost $4.4 trillion has been spent on fighting terrorism… And as a result today we are witnessing the expansion of terrorism, the increasing threat of terrorist attacks: terrorism is becoming more organized,” he stated incredulously.

And as the continent deals with the aftermath of yet another deadly terrorist attack, this one in Brussels, at the very heart of the European Union, the Italian lawmaker said the war is not in Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya, but rather “the war is in our home and its name is terrorism.”

Read more

His method for effectively confronting this global scourge was straightforward: Cooperate with Russia.

“Cooperation with Russia gives us, the Europeans, the opportunity to provide greater security in Europe and all over the world by means of special services,” he said.

The conversation then moved to comments by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who said last week that if the Minsk agreements are executed “the US will lift sanctions against Russia.”

When asked to what extent we should place faith in such pronouncements, Di Battista slammed the sanctions regime against Russia, calling them “insane” and implemented to help the US economy.

The Italian parliamentarian said the sanctions were based on US logic, which demanded: "Now we are going to suspend or at least weaken trade relations between the European Union and the Russian Federation, therefore the market share which previously belonged to Russia will be ours.”

He went on to emphasize the sanctions actually hurt European producers far more than they did Russia, while, at the same time, destroying cooperation against the common threat of terrorism.

“So I believe that these sanctions had a more negative impact on Italy, France and other EU countries than on Russia itself,” Di Battista said. “These are completely senseless measures that spoiled diplomatic and economic relations with the Russian Federation that are really necessary to counter the common and very real threat of terrorism at the moment.”

He concluded by mentioning problems related specifically to Italy, especially in some southern regions of the country “where high investment in agriculture is especially needed because the unemployment rate among young people is about 60 percent.”