Italy denies leaning on Panama

(ANSA) - Rome, September 24 - Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has denied two migrant-rescue NGOs' claim he leant on Panama to strip their ship Aquarius2 of its flag and thus become a 'pirate' ship.
    "It's clear that no country wants to take the responsibility of being identified with a ship that hampers sea rescue operations, refuses coordination with the Libyan coast guard, attacks democratic governments like the Italian one, and expects to distribute clandestine migrants in Europe," he said Sunday night.
    SOS Méditerranée and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said earlier they were "shocked" after Panama's marine authority said it had been "forced" to revoke Aquarius2's listing in its naval register "under the evident economic and political pressure of the Italian authorities".
    The two NGOs said "this measure condemns hundreds of men, women and children, in desperate search of safety, to drown at sea and inflicts a hard blow to the Aquarius's humanitarian mission. MSF said the Aquarius2 had saved 47 migrants including 17 minors and a pregnant woman of Libya.
    Salvini said Sunday the ship would "never" dock in Italy.
    On Monday he called the Aquarius2 a "ghost ship".
    SOS Méditerranée and MSF have appealed to the European Union to intervene.
    The Aquarius2 is just the latest in a string of NGO-operated migrant rescue ships Salvini has turned away from landing at Italian ports - but it is the first whose flag has been stripped by a foreign government.
    The Aquarius2 is heading for Marseille, where SOS Méditerranée has asked authorities to "exceptionally" authorise the disembarkation of the 58 migrants aboard, the NGO said later Monday.
    SOS Méditeerranée director operations Frédéric Penard told a press conference in Paris that "the port of Marseille is the only one possible from which to set off again".
    Italy has barred its ports to the Aquarius2 after Panama removed its flag and turned it into what Interior Minister Matteo salvini called a "ghost ship".