Italy PM Meloni: Iran cannot be allowed nuclear weapons capable of striking Europe

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told the Italian Senate that Iran cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons alongside a missile capability that could soon enable it to strike Europe directly. 'We cannot allow the ayatollah regime to possess nuclear weapons, combined with a missile capability that could soon be able to strike Italy and Europe directly,' Meloni said, warning that such a development could trigger a nuclear arms race. Meloni's statement is significant as the most direct European leader framing of Iran's nuclear program as a direct European security threat — not merely a regional Middle East concern. With Witkoff having stated that the US and Israel have 'destroyed almost all of Iran's enrichment capability,' the Italian PM's statement reinforces the war's de facto nuclear disarmament objective. The range framing is geopolitically important: Iran's Shahab-3 and Khorramshahr missiles have ranges that theoretically reach southeastern Europe, and with a nuclear warhead capability, that would put Greece, Italy, and other European nations within Iran's deterrence envelope. Meloni is aligning Italy firmly behind the US-Israel war objectives rather than the more cautious French/German diplomatic stance.