{"id":315546,"date":"2025-08-03T21:39:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T21:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315546\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T21:39:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T21:39:19","slug":"italian-turkish-and-libyan-leaders-meet-to-address-migration-flows-to-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315546\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian, Turkish and Libyan leaders meet to address migration flows to Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n         Published on<br \/>\n            01\/08\/2025 &#8211; 18:42 GMT+2\n            <\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-ad__placeholder__logo\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\" width=\"72\" height=\"72\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n          ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Turkish President Recep Tayyip\u00a0Erdo\u011fan hosted Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Libya\u2019s Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah in Istanbul on Friday for a summit centred on addressing migration, enhancing cooperation and supporting Libya\u2019s political stability.<\/p>\n<p>A statement issued by Meloni&#8217;s office following the closed-door session said the three leaders discussed strengthening cooperation in the Mediterranean region, starting with the management of migration flows.<\/p>\n<p>Meloni praised the &#8220;excellent results achieved&#8221; through collaboration with Turkey on migration control, saying that the lessons learned from working with Ankara should be used to support the Libyan Government of National Unity&#8217;s efforts on migration, according to a statement by her office.<\/p>\n<p>Erdo\u011fan said that &#8220;long-term and sustainable&#8221; solutions were needed to eliminate the root cause of migration, according to a statement from his office.<\/p>\n<p>Libya is a major transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and hoping to make it to Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Drowning incidents\u00a0near the country&#8217;s coast have been common. In December, at least 61 migrants,\u00a0including women and children, drowned off the town of Zuwara on Libya&#8217;s western coast.<\/p>\n<p>Greece recently announced plans to send warships to international waters in the region following a surge in crossings from Libya to the southern Greek island of Crete, a more perilous route than the more frequently used passage between Turkey and nearby Greek islands.<\/p>\n<p>In 2023, hundreds died when the fishing trawler Adriana, carrying migrants from Libya to Italy,\u00a0sank in waters off Greece.<\/p>\n<p>The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said that in 2021, 32,400 refugees and migrants had made the crossing from Libya to Europe, more than twice as many as in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>In April, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed to increase staffing for Frontex, the EU\u2019s external border and coastguard agency, by 30,000, a number that could provide a significant boost in its mission to secure Europe&#8217;s external borders.<\/p>\n<p>Giorgia Meloni reaffirmed Italy&#8217;s commitment &#8220;to Libya\u2019s stability, unity, and independence,&#8221; and its support for a Libyan-led, United Nations-facilitated political process leading to elections.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish presidential statement said the three leaders would reconvene to evaluate decisions taken, following lower-level technical meetings.<\/p>\n<p>Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator\u00a0Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>In the disarray that followed, the country split into rival administrations in the east and west, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey has been allied with the Tripoli-based government in the west, but has recently taken steps to improve ties with the eastern-based government as well.<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, Turkey reached\u00a0an agreement\u00a0with the Tripoli-based government which delineated maritime boundaries between Libya and Turkey, angering Greece and Cyprus which say the agreement infringes on their rights.<\/p>\n<p>Additional sources<strong> \u2022 AP<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 01\/08\/2025 &#8211; 18:42 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT Turkish President Recep Tayyip\u00a0Erdo\u011fan hosted Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[114933,2000,299,5187,2199,6656,5805,8537],"class_list":{"0":"post-315546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-african-migrants","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-italy","13":"tag-libya","14":"tag-migrants","15":"tag-turkiye-turkey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114967004229270813","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}