If you were going to resume work on nuclear weapons, would you announce it immediately? ... Or would you say that you're developing your nuclear power capabilities.
There are well established historical lines here to be read between.
Having a civilian program makes things a little easier, or at least easier to hide. Italy does have a tiny uranium reserve, which it never mined, but I'd guess that they'd need to buy the uranium they'd need for a nuclear weapon. That's a bit easier to do, if you can disguise it as nuclear fuel.
American here. It’s becoming clear that a sizeable section of our electorate only respects nuclear sovereignty.