The meeting with Erdogan lasted almost an hour. There are the interpreters, the real interview time is halved, but that’s enough for a tour of the horizon that intertwines with Giorgia Meloni’s first day at the NATO summit. The Prime Minister, in her speech behind closed doors, emphasized the multipolar role that the transatlantic organization can play, expanding its traditional spheres of influence. With the Turkish president you enter into the merits: the fight against terrorism, which must be more coordinated, must focus on an alliance that goes from the EU to the Middle East, with Ankara as one of the main players.
The primary focus is that of the Mediterranean, of the African countries which are both victims and accomplices of trafficking in illegal immigrants, blackmail of terrorists, influences of the Russian company Wagner: if NATO were to focus its antennas also on this sphere of the world, more than in past, for Giorgia Meloni this widening of horizons could only be accompanied by Turkish know-how and influence in these territories. An example above all, which is mentioned during the talks: Libya, and the ability to intervene that Erdogan exercises with his military in the great risk between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.
Meloni is back from a bilateral agreement with the British premier Sunak, with whom he also discusses the consortium project that also involves Japan on the sixth generation military fighter that we have put in the pipeline, but above all he is back from an intervention behind closed doors, in secret theory, at the NATO summit, in which he placed the emphasis precisely on the risks of terrorism, which goes hand in hand with the smugglers of migrants. A portion of the world that is a priority for Italy has been ignored for too long by both Washington and NATO, it would be time to adjust the shot, to invest more.
The fight against terrorism, against organized trafficking, is central to Meloni, a dossier on which the stability of the Mediterranean and Europe depends. But what is a focus of our country may turn out to be marginal in a summit in which Kiev’s accession procedures to NATO hold sway: our country has a prudent line, it is for conditional accession, but everyone knows that on this subject what counts in the first place is the opinion of the White House, which has currently frozen the decision. Behind closed doors Meloni repeats what she has always maintained: Putin must withdraw his troops before being able to start real negotiations and be able to talk about a path to peace.
The head of the Italian government therefore confirms the hard line, in line with the prevailing position in NATO: there can be no peace except with a retreat of Russian positions that suits the government in Kiev. Perhaps more interesting is a part of the conversation with Erdogan, when the Turkish leader asks Italy to once again strongly support his country’s accession to the EU. It is the first time that Meloni has addressed this topic as prime minister in an institutional setting. During the electoral campaign, you sided with those European countries that consider Ankara unprepared to make a leap of this type. Yesterday he listened, but she did not express herself. And already a silence is eloquent, a change of pace, which is enough for Erdogan to send her an official invitation to Ankara.
On the rest, Chigi’s sources describe and summarize Meloni’s position centered on three fronts: greater development and investments by NATO not only on the Eastern and Asian fronts, but necessarily also on Africa and the Mediterranean; greater valorisation of the European chain of command, which now has 25 members out of 27, a very strong support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. All with an explicit corollary: «NATO must remain united, we cannot divide».