The secretary general of NATO Jean Stoltenberg was Italy where he met the premier Giuseppe Conte and the Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.
Stoltenberg spoke with concern of the military escalation in Syria at the hands of Turkey, because the ISIS could be invigorated in that area.
On the sidelines of the meeting with Giuseppe Conte, Stoltenberg said"act in moderation, any action taken by Turkey in northern Syria is proportionate and measured, we must not jeopardize the fight against the common enemy, ISIS, which still poses a great threat to the Middle East, North Africa and all our countries".
Also the Italian premier he confirmed:"We talked about international crisis scenarios, in particular Syria. Turkey has taken a unilateral initiative on which I can only express concern, especially for interventions that can lead to further destabilization of the Region and cause further suffering to the local community".
The issues that are most dear to Italy were also discussed, from the stabilization of Libya to the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
In this regard, the Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said: "The war between Tripoli and Cyrenaica represents one of the main concerns for Italy and for national security. And everything must take place following the line drawn by the United Nations. In view of the London summit, Stoltenberg stressed how Italy is at the forefront and at the forefront not only in NATO missions, but also in support of the missions in Jordan and Tunisia in the fight against terrorism. We have the support of Naples where the NATO hub for the south is located, which allows us to have better monitoring and a greater understanding of the threats at a territorial level ”.
Stoltenberg he then assured that "in Sicily we may have to be able to monitor emerging crises and we expect to be able to use the first systems at the end of this year".
This is the system AGS - Alliance Ground Surveillance - thanks to which it should be possible to have an overall picture of the situation on the ground.
AGS system
The Global Hawk AGS version, produced by the American company Northrop Grumman connects several radar devices and sensors assigned to unmanned aircraft, such as the new advanced Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP), which allows you to identify and track all moving objects at all times and to provide NATO commands with images of battlefields and potential crisis areas. "The main operational station of the terrestrial surveillance system - the manager of Northrop Grumman said in the 2016 - will be supported in Sigonella by two mobile and transportable earth stations that will ensure the connection of data links, information processing and exploitation of system functions by multiple users".
The five “Global Hawk” AGS of the Sicilian base are the first aircraft purchased directly by NATO after the AWACS radar aircraft which entered into operation with the NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force in the early 80s.
At the NATO AGS program, the most expensive in the history of the Alliance, 1,7 billion dollars, contributed financially however only 15 allied countries: Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States.
Among the companies that contributed to the system, together with Northrop Grumman for the construction of the aerial and ground components of the AGS, are Airbus Defense & Space, EADS Deutschland GmbH (Cassidian), Kongsberg and the Italian Selex Es (Finmeccanica).
The Italian company was also interested in the design and construction of the Sigonella operations center and of the communication and data transmission equipment and images, for a total value of 140 million.
"The AGS program is not only military, but also allows surveillance for humanitarian purposes: just think of the problem of illegal transport of migrants”, He declared at the dawn of the collaboration Fabrizio Giulianini, CEO of Selex Es. "Civilian populations can be assisted, improving crisis and aid management in emergency situations".