Italy opposes any military action against Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program because such an attack could destabilize the entire Middle East, Italian Premier Romano Prodi said Tuesday.

Iran reopened two consulates on Tuesday in the cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, which were closed after US troops raided the one in Erbil and abducted five Iranians in January.

The jailed chief of Turkey’s Kurdish rebels remains a powerful symbol for fighters who revere him with a personality cult. But the guerrilla lieutenants who plot tactics from bases in northern Iraq are coming under increasing scrutiny as Turkey presses Iraq and the United States for their arrest.