(Adnkronos) – Italy’s premier Giorgia Meloni held talks on Thursday in Rome with the prime minister of Libya’s internationally recognised Government of National Unity, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, Meloni’s office said in a statement.
The talks come after Libya’s rival administrations in Tripoli (the GNU) and in the east of the country last month agreed on a unified national budget for the first time since 2013 and also took part in military exercises sponsored by the US Africa Command (Africom), another first for the oil state and former Italian colony.
The prospects for normalising Libya’s institutions and stabilising the country, infrastructure projects, migration, energy and security were likely to be on the agenda at Meloni and Dbeibeh’s meeting. The talks are taking place during the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz key oil and gas shipping conduit amid the the US-Israel war against Iran that began in late February and Italy’s diplomatic drive to diversify its energy supplies.
Italy’s oil major ENI in March announced two new gas discoveries in a high-quality reservoir off the Libyan coast totalling over a trillion cubic feet. Libya’s state-run National Oil Corporation said its expects the finds to contribute around 130 million cubic feet of gas per day, increasing NOC’s ability to meet local and global market needs and to address supply shortages.
The gas will be supplied to the Libyan domestic market and exported to Italy, NOC said.
