By Gram Slattery and Angelo Amante

ANKARA/ROME, July 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday called Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni a "nice person" but criticised her for failing to help in the conflict with Iran, his latest remarks in a diplomatic dispute that is straining bilateral ties.

Meloni was once seen as a close ally of Trump, but the relationship faltered last month when he told Italian TV channel La7 that she had "begged" him to take a photo with her at a G7 summit in France. She denied the claim and accused him of fabricating the story.

By Humeyra Pamuk, Gram Slattery and Huseyin Hayatsever

ANKARA, July 7 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday he would lift U.S. sanctions imposed on Turkey over its purchase of Russian defense missiles, and signaled a willingness to sell the NATO ally F-35 fighter jets, a move likely to face strong resistance in Congress.

By Andrew Mills, Maha El Dahan, Jonathan Saul and Marwa Rashad

DOHA, July 7 (Reuters) - A Qatari LNG tanker was at risk of exploding and a Saudi crude tanker was damaged near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, sending oil prices higher as maritime authorities raised the threat risk for vessels transiting the waterway to "severe."

By Jonathan Spicer, Iain Withers and Marc Jones

ANKARA/LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - Nine countries have committed to a new global defence bank, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Tuesday, in a boost for the multilateral drive to help rearm allied nations.

Carney said in a statement at the NATO summit in Turkey's capital Ankara that Albania, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine had all pledged their support to the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB), which will be based in Canada.

LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - Britain on Tuesday summoned Iran's Chargé d’Affaires, Tehran's most senior diplomat in London, after two Romanian nationals were given lengthy jail sentences over the stabbing of a journalist working for a Persian-language media group in London.

The two men, Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, -who British prosecutors said were acting as proxies for the Iranian government - were sentenced last week to eight years and 12 years in jail respectively for their role in the 2024 attack.