• Luca Beccari, secretary of state for foreign affairs, thanked the UAE government for the recent donation by the country’s Red Crescent of winter clothes to needy San Marino families
• San Marino has been an independent state for 1,720 years, and has a population of nearly 34,000

Francesco Bongarrà

ROME: San Marino has thanked the UAE for its generosity toward those in need in the world’s oldest republic.

Luca Beccari, secretary of state for foreign affairs, also expressed the “warmest congratulations of the people and institutions of San Marino” on the success of the UAE’s Hope Probe in reaching the Martian orbit, representing the first interplanetary mission undertaken by an Arab country. “This mission is clear evidence … of the leading role in research played by the UAE,” he added.

During a videoconference meeting, Beccari and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the UAE’s minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, discussed “the excellent bilateral relations between the two states, as well as the state of the various forms of cooperation in progress.”

Beccari thanked the UAE government for the recent donation by the country’s Red Crescent of winter clothes to needy San Marino families.

He also reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the Dubai Expo that will be held in October. Al-Nahyan thanked San Marino for its “heartfelt participation,” and invited Beccari to visit the UAE on that occasion.

San Marino has been an independent state for 1,720 years, and has a population of nearly 34,000.