Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto on Friday told the newspaper Corriere della Sera the war in Iran is “not our war” and reiterated Italy’s commitment to promoting a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict.
“The Prime Minister [Giorgia Meloni] was very clear in Parliament: this is not our war, we did not want it, we are not part of it,” Crosetto said.
“We are doing everything we can to get back to the negotiating table and diplomacy,” he continued. “And we are trying to get Europe to speak with one voice, united, as I did in agreement with her at the E5 meeting, pushing on two fundamental points.”
Crosetto spoke with Corriere della Sera following Thursday following Thursday’s missile attack on a Italian military base in Erbil, a town in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Crosetto said that the ongoing war is “not our war” in response to a question from the newspaper asking how Italy intends to restore respect for the U.N. Charter as Crosetto said when Italian opposition parties accuse the Meloni government of being “subservient” to America.
“To me, it seems exactly the opposite. What more should we do, according to them? Go to war with the U.S., Russia, Iran?” Guido reportedly asked the journalist.
Asked by Corriere why does the Italian government not “attack” President Donald Trump, Crosetto asked back, “Should we have attacked him? Would he have given anything more to even a single citizen?”
Defense Minister Guido Crosetto appears on the television program Cinque Minuti in Rome, Italy, September 29th, 2025 (Massimo Di Vita/Archivio Massimo Di Vita/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty)
He reportedly added that Italy has no evidence to judge whether the United States and Israel’s warnings over Iran’s nuclear threat that led to the ongoing war are true.
“They [U.S. and Israel] claim that the legitimacy of their intervention is based on that danger. We are living in such difficult times, partly because some of the problems are posed by countries that have always been our allies and friends, to whom we owe our democracy and freedom,” Crosetto said.
“We cannot break strategic and inseparable alliances at such delicate moments,” he continued. “Sometimes we need to keep a clear head, remain silent, avoid controversy, and act with all the means at our disposal.”
The Italian Defense Minister said there there is “a lot” concern about the ongoing conflict, and asserted that although he does not know if Iran’s response took the U.S. and Israel “by surprise,” he expected a strong reaction.
“I believe the goal is to force Iran to permanently renounce uranium enrichment for military purposes,” he said. “It was less expected that Tehran would react by also striking neighboring countries, widening the regional conflict and creating a global energy crisis, given that 20 percent of the world’s gas and oil supplies pass through Hormuz.”
“But once the U.S. and Israel put themselves in a position to be accused of violating international law, the reactions increased,” he continued.
Crosetto detailed to the newspaper that the first thing Italy is trying to get Europe to speak in consensus is to request, “as India and China have done,” that ships from countries not at war are granted passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
“The only countries that will not experience increases in oil and gas prices will be the U.S. and Russia,” Crosetto said.
“Everyone else will, even though we have long been working to open channels with Algeria, Azerbaijan, and other countries with which we, as a government and I personally, have been involved over the years,” he continued.
The Italian Defense Minister detailed that his country is asking the EU to temporary suspend the “bureaucratic decisions that mean our energy costs are 40 percent higher than in other countries.
“It is common sense and there is no need to waste time doing it,” he stressed.
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