Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, criticized the U.S. strikes against Iran, saying the action was “outside” of international law.
In remarks to Italy’s Parliament, Meloni distanced her country from the war, saying it was “an intervention that Italy is not part of and does not intend to take part in,” comparing it to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
She cushioned this criticism with a stress that Europe and the world could not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.
“We cannot afford an ayatollah regime in possession of a nuclear weapon, combined, moreover, with a missile capability that could soon be able to directly strike Italy and Europe,” she said.
Meloni also touched on the bombing of an elementary school for girls located next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base that killed at least 175 civilians.
“I express firm condemnation of the massacre of little girls that occurred at the Minab school in southern Iran, solidarity with the families of the young victims, and request that the responsibilities for this tragedy be quickly established,” she said.
Though the clear culprit has not been established, many analysts and media outlets have blamed the United States. Preliminary findings from a U.S. investigation suggest the school was hit accidentally due to dated intelligence, with the school previously being part of the base.
The culpability of the U.S. was widely reported by the time Meloni gave her speech, making it an implicit criticism of the U.S. strikes.
Other European Union leaders have also criticized the war, with Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten saying it occurred “outside the framework of international law” and French President Emmanuel Macron saying it was “outside of international law” and that France “cannot approve of them.”
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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was the most vociferous critic of the war, earning harsh criticism and embargo threats from Trump.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that those leaders who are incapable of fulfilling that duty use the smoke of war to hide their failures and, in the process, line the pockets of a few,” Sánchez said.
