Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he will travel to Syria on Friday to encourage the country's transition following the ouster of President Bashar Assad by Islamist insurgents, and said Europe should review its sanctions on Damascus now that the political situation has changed.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Friday that he had called for a moratorium on EU sanctions on Syria for six months or one year, but that a final decision could only come from the entire bloc.

Italy should lead international efforts to lift sanctions on Syria after the Assad regime fell to Islamist-led rebels a month ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Premier Giorgia Meloni in a phonecall Thursday,

The Vatican has approved new guidelines for Italian bishops, allowing homosexual individuals to enter the seminary on the condition that they refrain from sexual relations. The document was posted on the website of the Italian episcopate.