The Argentine President, Javier Mileileft this Monday at a trip whose first destination is Israel, where he will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and which will include an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican.
After his visit to the Holy See, he will meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome next Monday.
Before taking off on a scheduled flight from Buenos Aires, the president expressed his support and solidarity with Israel in the face of “the attacks of the terrorist group Hamas.”
He was accompanied by Foreign Minister Diana Mondino as well as her sister and Secretary General of the Presidency, Karina Milei, and Rabbi Axel Wahnish, the Argentine ambassador-designate to Israel.
He will arrive in Tel Aviv on Tuesday afternoon and visit the Western Wall, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said at a press conference on Monday.
On Wednesday he will meet in Jerusalem with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and then with Prime Minister Netanyahu, to whom he will reiterate his government’s support in the fight against Hamas.
Argentina’s president has publicly condemned Hamas’s “cruel and unforgivable” violence, referring to the Oct. 7 attack on Jewish communities in southern Israel.
On Thursday he will visit a kibbutz and hold a meeting with relatives of those abducted by Hamas.
Milei has expressed that his administration will seek to make Israel and the United States its key international allies.
In Rome, his delegation will be joined by Argentine Interior Minister Guillermo Francos, Human Capital Minister Sandra Pettovello and Culture Minister Francisco Sánchez.
Milei will attend the canonization Mass of Blessed Maria Antonia of St. Joseph, Mama Antula, on March 11 at St. Peter’s Basilica, where he and Pope Francis are expected to greet each other for the first time.
The next day the president is received in an audience by the Pope.
In the past, Milei disqualified the Pope with offensive comments, calling him an “idiot” and defining him as a “representative of evil on earth” and accusing him of “wanting to spread communism.”
But later, in a presidential debate, he claimed he had apologized to the pope. In late January, Francisco, 87, said he would receive Milei and said he was not offended by her comments.
After assuming the presidency on December 10, Milei invited the pope to visit his home country, which he has not returned to since ascending the throne in 2013.
After meeting with Pope Francis, he plans to meet with Prime Minister Meloni and Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Monday to strengthen diplomatic ties between the two countries.
There, a group of Argentine businessmen will join the delegation to conduct business meetings with their colleagues from Italy.
SPRING: AFP
