Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hit back at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Secretary General Mark Rutte after he claimed that the United States used its bases in Italy in the war with Iran. Meloni said that Rutte gave an “enthusiastic” account of events and that Italy did not participate in the conflict with Iran.
“In his — let’s call it enthusiastic — account, the secretary-general has lumped together things that are actually quite different from one another, confusing the types of authorised flights,” Meloni told reporters during a Franco-Italian summit in southern France on Thursday (25th June).
“We did not participate in the conflict with Iran. By the way, if we had participated in the Iran conflict, there would be no explanation for this disappointment that the U.S. president keeps reiterating very often,” the Italian PM added.
She said that she had no idea why Rutte made the remarks and that he was probably setting the stage for the next NATO summit. “Probably it was an attempt to prepare in the best way the next NATO summit, but, in any case, I think one needs to be cautious when talking about these matters,” Meloni said.
Following the controversy, NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said that Rutte’s comments were about “logistics or technical support” and that he had “highlighted how allies, including Italy, carried out their existing bilateral agreements in the context of basing and overflights.”
Speaking to Fox News, Rutte had claimed that Italy allowed 500 US military aircraft to use US bases in Italy during the conflict. He cited the example of Italy to claim that the US’ Operation Epic Fury against Iran had European support. His remarks triggered a political storm in Italy, as the remarks contradicted the Italian government’s claim that Italy did not play a role in the war.
Italy was quick to push back against Rutte’s remarks and clarified that only technical and logistical flights were allowed to take off from Italian territory. Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said on Wednesday (24th June) that Italy had acted in full compliance with its constitution, international treaties and agreements governing allied bases on its soil.
“As already clarified in parliament, the government authorised exclusively technical and logistical, non-kinetic activities,” Crosetto said, adding that Italy had refused requests that fell outside those limits.
Notably, Italy’s refusal to allow use of the US bases in its territory for military operations during the war with Iran has been a cause of recent friction between the two countries.
