European expansion to include Turkey and issues related to the Middle East and the Arab Spring were at the centre of the talks held by Minister Giulio Terzi\u2019s Special Envoy for the Mediterranean, Maurizio Massari, in Ankara. As Massari reminded his Turkish interlocutors, Italy is \u201csponsoring\u201d their country\u2019s entry to the European Union. The meetings included an exchange of views on how to take forward the \u201cpositive agenda\u201d, i.e. Turkey\u2019s involvement in the discussion of EU issues over and above the negotiations on the different \u201cchapters\u201d, which we firmly support. <\/P>
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Italy is sponsoring the Turkey Focus Group, which replaced the former Friends of Turkey Group. The Group will meet in the margins of the forthcoming EU Council of Ministers on 27 February, which Minister Terzi will be attending. The talks in Ankara, reported Massari, also served to understand the Turkish perception of \u201chow this exercise can be used to move forward the European Union-Turkey dialogue\u201d.<\/P>
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Turning to the Middle East and the Arab Spring, Massari said he had found the Turkish authorities in agreement on how best to open a political process in Syria. \u201cIn our view, Turkey is a central actor in the entire region\u201d, said the Envoy. He added that Ankara\u2019s role had grown considerably after the events of the last year. It is Italy\u2019s intention, therefore, to liaise very closely with Turkey to exchange political evaluations and discuss options. <\/P>
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\u201cItaly\u2019s message was well received\u201d, added Massari. He underscored that \u201cit is in the interest of the Turks too to liaise closely with us and engage in frequent, regular discussion\u201d. During this latest visit, Massari discussed \u201chow the region as a whole will evolve, from Tunisia to Morocco, to Egypt, to Libya\u201d. The talks also touched on \u201cthe democratic transitions in these countries, where both Italy and Turkey have interests and have a very important role to play\u201d. <\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European expansion to include Turkey and issues related to the Middle East and the Arab Spring were at the centre of the talks held by Minister Giulio Terzi\u2019s Special Envoy for the Mediterranean, Maurizio Massari, in Ankara. As Massari reminded his Turkish interlocutors, Italy is \u201csponsoring\u201d their country\u2019s entry to the European Union. The meetings […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6,42],"class_list":["post-20963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-approfondimenti","tag-mediterraneo-e-medio-oriente","tag-unione-europea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}