It was certainly in his intentions. But for scheduling reasons, Giorgia Meloni’s visit to Kyiv before Christmas is highly unlikely. Not only because of the commitments already on the table – Euromed in Alicante, EU-Western Balkans summit in Tirana and then the three-day meeting in Brussels in the middle of the month – but also because of the complications of a trip that, for security reasons, takes about 24 hours there – and return (plane to the Polish border, then car and finally train from Poland to the Ukrainian capital and vice versa). However, the Prime Minister remains determined to send a strong message in this direction. And he is seriously considering going personally to a critical scene where the Italian soldiers are deployed. A visit before Christmas, certainly by the end of the year that the Palazzo Chigi offices are already working on. And that, in all likelihood, it will be in Iraq, an area where Italy has had a presence for twenty years and where it has been in command of the NATO mission with General Giovanni Maria Iannucci since last March.
In short, a message of closeness to the Armed Forces and in particular to the military contingents deployed on a front that is not only difficult but in some ways critical. With over a thousand troops and nearly three hundred land and air vehicles stationed between the bases of Erbil (in Iraqi Kurdistan) and Baghdad. But also a sign of full and strong support for NATO’s motivations, considering that Italy is foremost in terms of its contribution to the operations of the Atlantic Alliance missions. A fact that Meloni was concerned with a few days after her inauguration in the Palazzo Chigi, as soon as she ended her first personal meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Because, as the prime minister emphasized, “we are proud to be in command of the two most important NATO missions in NTM-1” (NATO training mission) “in Iraq and Kosovo”. Key missions in the balance of the Alliance and also in relations with the United States, which is very keen to see Allies engaging on the Middle East front to focus on the Indo-Pacific front.
Italy’s “support for Iraq’s security and stability” — Italian Ambassador to Baghdad Maurizio Greganti pointed out just three weeks ago during the Meri Forum in Erbil — is “a decades-long commitment” that “will continue for a long time.” “.