During his reply to the Chamber, after protests from opposition parliamentarians, Guido Crosetto admitted: "The US attack on Iran is outside the rules of international law," said the Defense Minister. "The war began without the world's knowledge. Our problem now is managing the consequences of a crisis that has erupted and which we did not want."
"The guiding principle of our commitment remains de-escalation . We absolutely want to avoid an escalation of the conflict. We are encouraging all parties to exercise maximum restraint, keeping channels of dialogue with Iran open, without betraying our position: Iran cannot acquire nuclear weapons and missile systems capable of posing an existential threat to Israel, the region, and Europe ," Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in the Chamber of Deputies, taking stock of the war between the US and Iran .
In the Middle East, Tajani added, " 100,000 Italians are directly or indirectly involved in crisis areas , and the safety of our fellow citizens is the absolute priority. The Gulf task force has handled 14,000 calls and several thousand emails. The number of Italians assisted in leaving the risk areas has reached 10,000." "Some of our strategic partners in the Gulf have formally requested Italy's support in strengthening their air defense capabilities. This is why the government felt it was necessary to accede to these requests."
Crosetto instead spoke of the military consequences: "We must reassess our assets in the region and respond to the requests of friendly countries in difficulty. We intend to deploy a multi-domain force in the Middle East, with anti-drone and anti-missile air defense systems. Together with the Spanish and French, we will provide assistance to Cyprus."
Regarding the military deployed in the Middle East, the Defense Minister explained: "We had 2,576 personnel in the affected area before the conflict began, and as a result of this situation, we have taken further measures in recent days : in Kuwait, 239 soldiers are moving towards Saudi Arabia: of the 321, 82 will remain. In Qatar, seven of the ten soldiers are reaching Saudi Arabia. In Bahrain, where we have five soldiers, we are withdrawing personnel."
In Lebanon – where the Sassari Brigade is also present with the UNIFIL mission – "we are carefully assessing the situation and are ready to respond to any need, including with naval personnel for any evacuations."
"Given what happened in Turkey and what happened in Cyprus," Crosetto added, "I have instructed the Chief of the Defence Staff to raise the level of national air and anti-ballistic defense to the maximum, in coordination with the allies and NATO. Faced with a reckless reaction, we can expect anything, and anything can be expected."
(Unioneonline/lf)