Erdogan to attend G7 summit in Italy in June: hosts

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attend the Group of Seven summit in Italy next month, the Italian prime minister's office said Wednesday.

Giorgia Meloni, host of the meeting in southern Italy from June 13 to 15, spoke to Erdogan and the pair took "stock of the state of bilateral relations and the main international crisis scenarios", her office said.

She thanked him for "confirming his participation" at the leaders' summit, which brings together Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Pope Francis will also be at the summit, which is expected to focus largely on the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East.

Turkey is a fellow NATO partner but ties have been strained by its resistance to Sweden's NATO bid after Russia's war on Ukraine in 2022, reflecting Erdogan's more nuanced stance toward Russia.

On Gaza, Erdogan has become one of the Muslim world's harshest critics of Israel's devastating response to the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.