His three-day trip beginning on Wednesday includes meetings with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
Duda is also expected to stop at a Polish war cemetery at Monte Cassino to pay tribute to World War II military leader Władysław Anders, who died 50 years ago.
Duda is then scheduled to meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican and attend a Mass at the tomb of St. John Paul II, the Polish-born pope who died in 2005 and was canonized in 2014.
Polish President Andrzej Duda. Photo: Igor Smirnow/KPRP
While in Rome, Duda will attend a ceremony during which Poland will officially join the International Fund for Agricultural Development, according to his chief of staff, Krzysztof Szczerski.
Szczerski told reporters last week that Poland's decision to become a member of this UN agency was "a gesture of solidarity and a desire to help all starving people around the world.”
During his trip this week, the Polish president is also expected to stop by an Italian coronavirus research center.
Duda told private TV broadcaster Polsat last month that his planned visit to Italy and the Vatican would be “a very important trip” for him.
“I think many Poles will agree that this is where I should travel at the start of my second term as president," he said at the time.
Duda was sworn into his second term in office before both houses of Poland’s parliament in Warsaw on August 6.
(gs/pk)
Source: IAR