Premier Giorgia Meloni on Friday night
called for an immediate summit between the United States, Europe
and its allies saying that all splits in the West "make us
weaker" after Friday's row in the White House between President
Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In a statement released ahead of Sunday's summit on Ukraine in
London, Meloni said:
"An immediate summit between the United States, European states
and allies is needed to talk frankly about how we intend to
address today's great challenges, starting with Ukraine, which
we have defended together in recent years, and those that we
will be called upon to address in the future.
"This is the proposal that Italy intends to make to its partners
in the coming hours.
"Every division of the West makes us all weaker and favors those
who would like to see the decline of our civilization.
Not of its power or its influence, but of the principles that
founded it, first of all freedom.
A division would not suit anyone."
Meloni will have a meeting with the Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom Keir Starmer on Sunday in London, at 11 am (12 pm
Italian time) in Downing Street, Italian government sources said
Friday.
Then at 2 pm (3 pm Italian time), she will take part in the
mostly European leaders' summit on Ukraine, at Lancaster House.
The bilateral meeting scheduled before the meeting on common
European defence and the security of Ukraine that Starmer
himself will host in London on Sunday in the presence of 14
other leaders of EU and non-EU countries, as well as the heads
of the Union and NATO, was also officially confirmed by the
British government in a note.
Downing Street mentioned only two face-to-face appointments on
the agenda for now before the collective summit the day after
tomorrow: one, precisely, with Meloni and one with Zelensky.
Zelensky
Zelensky, who was berated by Trump for alleged ingratitude and
told his country would lose out to Russia's invasion if the US
pulled support Friday, leaving the White House after failing to
sign a minerals deal supposed to shore up American backing, is
set to meet Starmer later Saturday.
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