Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini yesterday personally thanked Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg for Malta's messages of condolence and solidarity over the L'Aquila earthquake.

The letter, which strongly emphasised the "sentiments of sincere friendship" between the two countries, comes in the wake of Italy's hard line criticism of Malta's refusal to accept the 140 migrants stranded close to Lampedusa last week.

The immigrants, 140 in all, were rescued by Turkish cargo vessel Pinar E in Malta's search and rescue (SAR) area. It was only four days later that the Italian government gave in and accepted the immigrants. Soon after, Home Affairs Minister Roberto Maroni lashed out at Malta and accused it of failing to carry out 600 rescues involving 40,000 migrants, which ended up in Italy.

In his letter, Mr Frattini thanked the Maltese government for its friendship, which "confirmed the strong ties which united the two countries".

Italian Ambassador Andrea Trabalza, who forwarded the letter, also thanked the Maltese government for its solidarity and friendship and for the help extended by the Civil Protection Department and the Maltese Red Cross.

After the earthquake, the two departments collected goods for the earthquake victims.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.