Conservative Islamic Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be accompanied by at least six ministers. He will meet Giorgio Napolitano first, then Mario Monti, while the ministers will have parallel talks. Some agreements are expected to be signed, one of them concerning security issues.

This is the second summit with Italian politicians for Erdogan, after the summit with his ''friend'' Silvio Berlusconi, which took place in 2008 in Izmir. There are no clouds in the sky between the two countries, ''their relations are healthy'', specified the Italian Ambassador in Ankara, Gianpaolo Scarante.

Rome is the first supporter of Turkey's EU membership application, which has been standing for more than 20 years and is progressing extremely slowly, with further turbulences to be expected in July, with Cyprus EU Presidency. Economic relations are steadily growing. The Turkish market is a new promised land for Italian entrepreneurs in these times of crisis and recession.

The Eastern European giant (which is three times the size of Italy, with 75 mln young inhabitants, which will become 100 mln in 20 years) is currently the 16th world's economy. It has a ''Chinese'' growth rate of 8.5%. It aims at becoming the eighth world's financial power, passing from a pro-capita income of USD 10,000 to 25,000.

Fifty major enterprises based in both countries held a meeting last week in Istanbul, in order to see how the Italian presence on the Italian market may be extended and t5o prepare a joint venture to face together the markets of the Middle East, Central Asia, Eastern Europe.

Tureky is driven by the ''Anatolian tigers'', the new aggressive SMEs inspired by the Italian North-East model; the country expects investments worth hundreds of billions from today until 2023, especially in infrastructures, transport and energy. There are 920 Italian enterprises at the moment, and Italy is already Ankara's fourth trade partner, with 21.4 bln in 2011.

Italy built hospitals, roads, ports and is currently running for construction of the new grand bridge on the Bosporus. Against the background of political earthquakes caused by uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey is preparing to take on itself the role of regional power, the police of the Eastern Mediterranean, drawing inspiration from the ''Ottoman empire'', according to Istanbul's press.

Turkey is the second NATO military power and is standing as a model of democracy for the new authorities stemming from the Arab Springs.

However, relations with Bashar Al Assadi's Syria are tense and Erdogan does not exclude to resort to Article 5 of the NATO; the Turkish Prime Minister might discuss this option with Monti, with Shiite-led Iraq with Armenia and Israel, in spite of the ''no trouble with neighbours'' line designed in the past years by the Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who will probably become the Prime Minister in 2014, when Erdogan becomes President of the Republic.

However, shadows are still looming of the human rights front. The Chairman of the FNSI,(National Federation of the Italian Press), Roberto Natale, asked Monti to raise the issue of the 100 journalists still held in Turkish prisons, an issue labelled as ''a matter of concern'' by Brussels.