NGO-rescue-ship row sparks tension between Italy, France

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 9 - The tough stance Premier Giorgio Meloni's government has adopted on NGO-run search-and-rescue (SAR) ships has sparked tension between Rome and Paris, with the French government blasting Italy's refusal to allow the Ocean Viking carrying 234 asylum seekers to dock in an Italian port.
    The Ocean Viking was heading to French territorial waters on Wednesday after Italy ignored its appeals for a port of safety for around three weeks following rescues of people in the southern Mediterranean.
    "The ship is currently in Italian territorial waters, there are extremely clear European rules that were accepted by the Italians," French government spokesman Olivier Veran was quoted as saying by AFP.
    He added that "the current attitude of the Italian government, notably its declarations and refusal to accept the ship," was "unacceptable." On Tuesday the Italian authorities finally allowed around 250 asylum seekers to leave two other NGO-run ships, Humanity 1 and the Geo Barents.
    They docked in Catania at the weekend but the government initially only allowed people considered vulnerable to land and had told the ships to return to international waters with the others still on board.
    SOS Méditerranée, the French NGO that runs the Ocean Viking, has said it should reach international waters off Corsica by Thursday after its appeals to Italy for a port of safety were met with "deafening silence".
    "We are still off the coast of Sicily, but we are moving towards Corsica where there is the first port of safety, excluding those of Italy, which did not assign us one," SOS Méditerranée activists on the ship said.
    "We will leave the Italian SAR zone and reach French waters and it has not been ruled out that Marseilles could be the final destination".
    On Tuesday Meloni thanked France for "sharing the responsibility of the migratory emergency, which up to now has been on the back of Italy and a few other States" after it was reported Paris had agreed to accept the Ocean Viking.
    "The immigration emergency is a European issue and it should be address as such," she said. (ANSA).