https://arab.news/53rz4
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni last week took part in the annual Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Bahrain. She said the GCC was offering a “historic opportunity” to Italy, a “nation with an ancient heart and forward-looking attitude” that is able to interact and integrate with other cultures, “yet never losing itself” — i.e., similar to GCC countries themselves.
Suggesting a new emphasis on links with the region, Meloni said that “geography and history have shaped our relationships and are destined to chart our common future.” She added that Italy “could never conceive of itself without the Mediterranean,” which “occupies only 1 percent of the world’s waters, yet it is crossed by 20 percent of the world’s maritime traffic thanks to the Suez Canal.”
She recalled ancient and extensive Roman-Arabian contacts, noting that “the Limes Arabicus (the border between the Roman Empire and the Arabian Peninsula) was not a rigid separation but a space for transit, communication and trade.” The Mediterranean and the Gulf are not “regional seas,” Meloni added, but rather can be “protagonists of major intercontinental interconnections.” Enclosing four key international passageways (the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab Al-Mandab Strait, the Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar), they play an unparalleled role in international trade and security.
