Terzi: Moderate leaderships must be supported

It is mandatory to ''continue to support the consolidation of democracies in countries such as Libya, Tunisia and Egypt which have moderate leaderships'', Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said today after the killing in Bengasi, Libya, of US ambassador Chris Stevens yesterday. ''Extremists are in a corner and need to stay there'', added Terzi on the sidelines of a meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Rome on Argentina's dictatorship. Terzi said that ''the consolidation of democracies born from the Arab spring is a fundamental priority and must overcome the difficulties we were expecting and which have emerged in such a dramatic way yesterday''. The foreign minister said however that the ''difficulties can be overcome with courage and our countries will to help these friends''. He also stressed that ''extremists are and need to remain cornered and must lose the little consensus they have, mostly among jihadist groups''.