Remarks by Italian Prime Minister Meloni before the meeting with President Trump, President Zelensky and European leaders

Prime Minister Meloni: well, thank you very much Donald, Mr President, for hosting us today in this important meeting. I think it is an important day, a new phase, after 3.5 years that we didn’t see any kind of sign from the Russian side that there was a willingness for dialogue. So, something is changing, something has changed, thanks to you, thanks also to the stalling in the battlefield, which was achieved with the bravery of Ukrainians and with the unity that we all provided to Ukraine. And the reason why I mention it is that we also have to remind that if we want to reach peace, and if we want to guarantee justice, we have to do it united. So, that’s why it’s a very good day the one we are in. You can obviously count on Italy, as it was from the beginning; we are on the side of Ukraine, and we absolutely support your efforts towards peace.
We will talk about many important topics. The first one is security guarantees, how to be sure that it won’t happen again, which is the precondition of every kind of peace. I’m happy that we will discuss about that, I’m happy that we will begin from a proposal which is the ‘article 5’ model, which was Italian at the beginning. So, we are always ready to bring our proposals for peace, for dialogue; it’s something we have to build together to guarantee peace and to defend the security of our nations. So, thank you, Mr President, for hosting us.