Rightwing League party leader Matteo
Salvini said Saturday Italy must work with the United States for
peace in Ukraine while government ally and centre-right Forza
Italia said they knew Salvini was "fascinated" by US President
Donald Trump but it was time to "stay calm" after Friday's clash
between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White
House.
"After three years of war and hundreds of thousands of deaths,
the time for Peace has come," Deputy Premier and Transport
Minister Salvini said on X.
"And if someone in Brussels still uses warlike tones, like
almost all Italian 'journalists' (with a few brave exceptions),
Italy has the right and duty to work, together with the United
States and all those who with tenacity and courage try to avoid
a Third World War, to give our children a future of peace and
prosperity".
Raffaele Nevi, national spokesperson for FI, said to Agorà
Weekend:
"We must try to remain calm, be very careful and responsible.
"Everyone expresses their positions, Matteo Salvini for example
we know well, he has long been very fascinated by Trump, but
beyond everything, we must create the conditions so that what is
happening does not result in a new tension between the EU and
the US.
"We must try to rediscover the reasons for being together and
ensure that we support Zelensky and at the same time also
dialogue with Putin to achieve peace.
"It's not easy, but we have to try and this is Italy's role if
it really wants to be a proactive country, otherwise we'll stand
aside and root for either Trump or Zelensky.
"Fan groups are never good in this situation, we have to be the
ones who try to overcome the impasse in which the West evidently
finds itself at the moment".
League MP and head of its Foreign Affairs department, Paolo
Formentini, responded: "The calm invoked by FI is personified by
their dear Ursula Von der Leyen who is leading Italy and the
whole of Europe into the abyss. Trump is imposing an epochal
change, if we wait for Macron and company, Italian businesses
and families will pay the price. The EU born as a dream is now a
cage of constraints, absurd rules, taxes and bans. Long live
Freedom, long live Trump".
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