(ANSA) - Rome, July 9 - Foreign Minister Enrico Moavero
Milanesi said on the prospect of revising the EU's migrant
rescue mission Sophia that "we won't duck our international
commitments, we are full involved (in Sophia) and we don't
intend to move outside the framework of international law, and
therefore European law".
Moavero Milanesi said at a press conference with UN special
envoy for Libya Ghassan Salamé that "our government has decided
to give more boats to Libya to save people. The idea is not only
to block but also to save people and to take them to a safe port
as soon as possible".
Moavero Milanesi was speaking after the European Commission
said Sophia's remit would be strategically revised soon.
He also spoke after Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said
Italy would close its ports to European navy ships, as it has
done with NGO ships.
The mandates of the EunavForMed Sophia and Themis missions do
not envisage all the EU ships involved necessarily offloading
their rescued migrants in Italy, EU sources said Monday.
Both the Sophia and the Themis mandates envisage the Marine
Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) deciding what is the safe
European port to offload migrants, and this is not necessarily
envisaged in the MRCC's home country, the sources said.
European Commission migration spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said
Monday the EC would shortly discuss Interior Minister Salvini's
demand to close Italian ports to ships taking part in
international missions that rescue migrants.
"A revision of the strategic mandate" of Operation Sophia "is
imminent", she said.
"Therefore that will be the occasion to discuss Italian
proposals," she said.
Salvini has called for the closure of Italian ports to EU
EUNAVFOR Med mission ships but the Italian defence ministry has
said he is not competent to do so.
Labour and Industry Minister and Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio
on Monday called for new rules of engagement for the European
Union's EUNAVFOR Med mission in the Mediterranean.
He was commenting after the differences over migrant rescues
emerged on Sunday between Salvini and the defence ministry.
Salvini, who is also a deputy premier and the leader of the
rightwing League party, called for the closure of Italian ports
to vessels engaged in international missions in the
Mediterranean after an Irish navy ship took 106 rescued asylum
seekers to Messina at the weekend.
A defence ministry source said that this decision was not
Salvini's competence.
Salvini has spearheaded the new League-5-Star Movement
government's tough stance on migration, which has seen access to
Italian ports denied to NGO vessels rescuing asylum seekers at
sea.
"For as long as the EUNAVFOR Med mission is standing, the
only ports (open to it) are the Italian ones," Di Maio told
Radio 1.
"But our aim is to change the rules of engagement of the
mission".
Salvini, Di Maio and Premier Giuseppe Conte huddled over the
migrant issue in Rome Monday.
The government "acts and speaks with a single voice" on
migrants, Salvini said on his reported disagreement with Defence
Minister Trenta on whether Rome can block EU rescue ships.
Speaking after the "summit" with Conte, Luigi Di Maio and
Economy Minister Giovanni Tria, Salvini said Trenta "was not at
today's summit, not even in spirit".
Salvini said the government was "absolutely compact" on the
migrant rescue issue. He said "one thing is form and another is
substance.
"The government line is a single one to fight human
trafficking: I'm happy with what has been done in these first 38
days".
Italy won't duck int'nal commitments -FM
Govt speaks with single voice on migrants says Salvini