Italy's Meloni says no regrets over trying to woo Trump

ANKARA, July 8 - Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday she did not regret her efforts to forge close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump, despite a series of public disagreements that have strained relations between the erstwhile friends.

Meloni was once seen as one of Trump's closest allies in Europe, but in recent months she has become the target of attacks from the White House leader in media interviews and social media posts.

"No, I absolutely don't regret anything I've done," Meloni said in Ankara, at the end of a NATO summit also attended by Trump, when asked whether she had second thoughts about the political capital she had invested in the U.S. president.

Trump's first public criticism of Meloni came in April, after she rebuked him for attacking Pope Leo over the pontiff's condemnation of the Iran war. In March, Italy denied permission for U.S. military aircraft bound for the Middle East to land at the Sigonella air base in Sicily.

The Italian leader, who was the only European head of government to attend Trump's inauguration last year, declined to respond to Sunday's social media post by Trump showing her looking up at him with the caption: "RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED".

"I made that political investment because I believe in the unity of the West. It's not a strategy I adopted with Trump's arrival, but one I have pursued with all my counterparts," she said.

Meloni acknowledged that "things are going the way we have seen" between her and Trump, but stressed that they still shared common ground on issues including immigration and opposition to what she described as "woke culture".

At the NATO summit, Trump struck a more conciliatory tone, describing Meloni as "a nice person", while renewing criticism of her for not doing more to support his military attacks on Iran, which are expected to resume. REUTERS