The head of Italian diplomacy on Wednesday said Italy is "ready to increase" the flow of legal migrants from Tunisia but calls for more efforts against illegal immigration.

Antonio Tajani, Italian foreign minister on his visit to the north African country reiterated on the need to reduce irregular immigration and strengthen regular immigration between the two countries.

"Italy is also ready to increase the number of regular immigrants, trained in Tunisia, who can come and work with us, in the field of agriculture, in the field of industry. That is to say, to reduce the 'irregular immigration and strengthen regular immigration," said Mr. Tajani.

He added, "the great problem of immigration is a scourge for Tunisia and Italy. We said we had to solve the problem at its roots. It is not an exclusively security problem. It is of course a security problem, but we must have a strategy to understand why thousands and thousands of people decide to leave their country of origin."

Mr. Tajani also announced the upcoming organization of a Business Forum to "further strengthen the presence of Italian companies" in Tunisia, which last year Italy became the first trading partner.