(Adnkronos) – United States president Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he liked Italy’s premier Giorgia Meloni, who is “a good person”, but their relations had “soured” because she refused to help the US in the war against Iran and with policing the Strait of Hormuz oil conduit, calling this “a mistake”.
“Our relations have deteriorated because she refused to help us,” Trump told reporters at the opening of a Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey.
“I didn’t put much pressure on her (Meloni). But she refused to get involved in the Strait of Hormuz or with Iran in general,” Trump said.
Trump referred to the Italian government’s refusal to allow US fighter jets to use its bases and to deploy ships in the key waterway without an international mandate during the war against Iran, which ended with an interim peace deal in mid-June.
“My relationship with her (Meloni) has soured, but I like her and I think she’s a good person who made a mistake,” Trump underlined.
“She wasn’t there for us, and that didn’t make me happy,” he said.
Before the US-Israel war on Iran in recent months, Trump and Meloni enjoyed warm ties and Meloni was the only European leader invited to the inauguration of Trump’s second presidential term in January last year.
