ANKARA: US President Donald Trump appeared to have turned the page on a diplomatic dispute with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday as he landed in Ankara for a key NATO summit.
The two fell out late last month after Trump claimed in remarks to an Italian television station that Meloni had “begged” him to take a photo together at the G7 summit and that he only agreed because he “felt sorry for her.”
Meloni angrily denied the claim, calling it “made up,” prompting Trump to redouble his efforts, his remarks opening an unusually personal rift with one of Europe’s most prominent right-wing leaders.
That argument sparked less-than-diplomatic exchanges that lasted until Sunday, when he posted a doctored image on his Truth Social platform showing Meloni looking at him as if adoring him in a message accompanied by the words: “A restraining order is needed.”
But on Tuesday, he seemed to adopt a more conciliatory tone.
“I actually think he’s a nice person,” he said at a joint news conference with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“We had a bad relationship, folks. It got a little bad because she refused to help us… She refused to get involved in the Strait of Hormuz,” he said, reiterating his disappointment with Europe’s reluctance to play a role in the US-Israeli war against Iran.
“I like her, I think she’s a nice person actually, but I think she made a mistake…she just wasn’t there for us and I wasn’t happy about that,” he said.
Trump has been highly critical of European NATO countries ahead of the Ankara meeting, with allies seeking to showcase increasing defense spending in hopes of appeasing him.
