(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 18 - Premier Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday defended her friendship with Elon Musk after ex-premier and Life Senator Mario Monti asked about her relations with the billionaire and member of US President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration.
    "I have good relations with a lot of people and I don't take orders from anyone, you should be happy about that," Meloni told the Upper House as she reported to parliament ahead of this week's EU summit.
    "I am a free person who talks to everyone but I don't take orders from anyone.
    "I don't know what film you have seen, but I think we have to understand each other on a fundamental difference between us and what we have seen (in government) over the years.
    "In the past we saw leaders who thought that a good relationship meant slavishly executing others commands".
    Meloni, the leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party, and the world's richest man have repeatedly expressed their admiration for each other.
    In November Musk spurred opposition claims of meddling in Italy's affairs by saying "these judges must go" after courts nixed the detention of the first small batches of migrants sent to processing centres in Albania under the government's innovative but controversial new deterrence policy.
    Meloni also said that lifting sanctions on Syria after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime may be a good idea while stressing that it might be too early to decide.
    "You will have read that the EU High Representative (for Foreign Affairs) Kaja Kallas is opening to the hypothesis of removing sanctions on Syria, another tool that can be used to get closer (to the new leadership)," Meloni said as she reported to the Senate before this week's EU summit.
    "But it is obvious that we are moving in a situation that is not very clear to anyone".
    On Tuesday Meloni told the Lower House that Italy is ready to dialogue with the new Syrian leadership, in agreement with European and international partners.
    "The fall of Assad's regime is good news, rightly celebrated by the Syrian population after over a decade of civil war," she said.
    "The rebel forces that have established themselves are heterogeneous, they have a different provenance and potentially contrasting interests.
    "There is obviously concern for the future of the nation.
    "Italy, the only G7 nation to have an open embassy in Damascus, is ready to dialogue with the new Syrian leadership, obviously in a context of shared evaluations and actions with European and international partners", she said. (ANSA).