VALLETTA, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat discussed migration over the phone with European Council President Donald Tusk on Thursday evening.

A statement, issued by the Office of the Prime Minister, said that the conversation between the two "focused on the issue of migration and the next European Council".

The summit is scheduled to take place between June 28 and 29, with European leaders expected to focus on migration, security and defense, as well as "economic and financial affairs".

Muscat's phone call with Tusk is the fourth conversation about migration he has had with a European leader this week following that with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Malta is currently engaged in a dispute with Italy over differences in migration policy that was sparked by the non-governmental rescue ship Aquarius.

Italy had refused to allow the ship carrying 629 rescued migrants and refugees enter any of its ports in the southern regions, and urged Malta to receive them.

The Aquarius ship had 629 people on board, including 123 non-accompanied minors and 11 small children.

Italy declared that its ports were closed to vessel and ordered it to remain in international waters. Malta maintained that since the people on board were rescued in an area closer to the Italian island of Lampedusa than Malta, then Italy was obliged to disembark those rescued itself.

Italy's decision to close its ports to new migrant arrivals had sparked the most direct clash yet among the country's new European Union-skeptic government, Malta and EU leadership in Brussels.

In an ad-hoc debate on migration at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs urged European leaders to amend the Dublin regulations at the next European Council summit in order to ensure better sharing of responsibilities among member states.