News | Sunday, 07 June 2009

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Italy-Malta-Libya migration summit put on hold again

Karl Stagno-Navarra
The much hyped Italy-Malta-Libya summit on migration announced in tandem last month by deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg and Italy’s foreign minister Franco Frattini has been “shelved”, as reports suggest that the Libyan foreign minister will not be attending the meeting scheduled to be held in Rome on Wednesday.
The news was confirmed in Rome this week by chief spokesman Maurizio Massari who admitted that contrary to what was announced on the 26 March, “nothing has been confirmed.”
Massari would not go into further details as to why the meeting has been put on hold, however reports suggest that Libya’s foreign minister Mussa Kussa was not willing to commit himself to the meeting.
This is the second time that the proposed tripartite meeting specifically on immigration was cancelled. The first, proposed by Malta and that was scheduled to be held in Valletta late last year, never materialised as the Libyan government cancelled it’s attendance at the eleventh hour.
Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi however is expected in Italy later in the week for formal talks with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ahead of the G20 summit to be held in l’Acquila.

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