Turkish President wants Italian PM to stop smoking

Sharm El-Sheikh [Egypt], October 14 (ANI): Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's anti-tobacco crusade has a new target: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Politico reported.

On the sidelines of a peace summit in Egypt aimed at ending the war in Gaza, Erdogan promised Meloni he would find a way to convince her to stop smoking.

"You look great. But I have to make you stop smoking," Erdogan told Meloni, according to footage published by Italian daily Il Foglio and other media, as cited by Politico.

But French President Emmanuel Macron, who was next to them, was quick to dash Erdogan's hopes. "It's impossible!" he said, laughing.

"I know, I know," Meloni said, adding a warning that quitting smoking might make her less sociable. "I don't want to kill somebody."

In a book based on a series of interviews, Meloni confessed she had started smoking again after quitting for 13 years. But she also acknowledged that smoking had helped her bond with other politicians, including Tunisian President Kais Saied, as per Politico.

Turkey's main tobacco control law is Law No. 4207, enacted in 1996 and amended several times, which bans smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces, prohibits tobacco sales to minors under 18, and includes regulations on advertising, promotion, and packaging. The law aims to protect public health by reducing exposure to secondhand smoke and discouraging tobacco use through various measures and enforcement actions.

Meloni was in Egypt to attend the signing ceremony of the peace plan for the Middle East. There, she also held bilateral talks with the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.

In a post on X, she said, "On the sidelines of the signing ceremony of the Peace Plan for the Middle East, I had a bilateral meeting with the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. We discussed the next steps in implementing the peace plan and I reaffirmed Italy's commitment to contributing to the stabilisation, reconstruction and development of the Gaza Strip and to relaunching a political process towards a framework of peace, security and stability in the Middle East based on the two-State solution. The conversation also allowed us to take stock of bilateral relations and in particular of the implementation of the Mattei Plan projects in the sectors of training, energy and sustainable agriculture." (ANI)

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