(Adnkronos) – The government on Thursday welcomed the launch of the pilot phase of the Joint Operations Centre in Tripoli, which aims to support Libyan efforts to manage illegal immigration, strengthen the country’s search and rescue capability and improve information exchange between Libya, Italy, Qatar and Turkey, which are are also staffing the centre.
The Joint Operations Centre’s launch “represents a concrete follow-up to the Istanbul Summit held on August 1, 2025,” premier Giorgia Meloni’s office said in a statement.
Libyan officials operating the new centre with liaison officers from Italy, Qatar, the statement noted
The centre’s launch also follows a meeting in Rome at Meloni’s office on 19 May attended by her diplomatic adviser Fabrizio Saggio and representatives from Libya, Qatar and Turkey, which highlighed Italy’s efforts to position itself as a diplomatic hub to tackle migration via the Sahel, Libya and the Mediterranean – still one of the most sensitive political and security issues for Italy and the European Union.
At the 19 May meeting, Libyan officials underlined that Libya cannot be a migrant resettlement zone and called for voluntary return programmes, support for migrants’ home countries and economic stabilisation efforts as key to Tripoli’s appoach.
“This enhanced cooperation will be carried out with full respect for Libyan sovereignty, with the shared goal of saving lives at sea and combating criminal networks involved in migrant smuggling,” said Thursday’s statement.
Operational coordination between Italy, Libya, Turkey and Qatar is becoming an increasingly key format for the management of migration in the central Mediterranean and related security issues, according to observers.
The Tripoli Joint Operations Centre’s pilot phase comes amid a hardening of Europe’s stance on migration. On Wednesday, the European Parliament gave a final green light to tough new EU migration rules allowing deportation centres or ‘return hubs’ located outside the block, home searches, longer detention periods, more stringent entry bans, new powers to locate illegal immigrants, longer and even permanent entry bans, a shorter timeframe of three months instead of six to process accelerated asylum-seeker cases with only one appeal allowed against a failed application.
The European Parliament’s overwhelming approval of the new migration rules, which critics describe as a cruel system that weakens protection for asylum-seekers, highlights a rise in anti-immigration sentiment across the EU over the past decade, which has bolstered support for far-right parties.
